wag and shrug

The poet shrugs as the grammarian wags a finger.

alt usage

If it’s poetry you want to write
You must pitch your Strunk & White.

beyond all that

Very little of what is in a grammar book or a style guide makes any difference to a poet.

rules-based writing

A poet teaching composition is dangerous to both student and teacher.

fewer markers

To avoid punctuation he would write the long way around.

grammar

A poem marred by the precision of its grammar.

by-product of sincerity

Originality is in any case a by-product of sincerity; that is to say, of feeling that is honest and accordingly rejects anything that might cloud the impression, such as unnecessary commas, modifying clauses, or delayed predicates.

—Marianne Moore, Predilections (Viking Press, 1955)

discrete element

In poetry the sentence and sentence fragment coexist harmoniously. The latter being like a sentence in that it’s often bounded by a starting capital letter and the endpoint period, however it’s not meant to function as a grammatical unit; rather the sentence fragment serves as a discrete element of thought, speech, image or breath.

healthy disregard for grammar

A poet should have a healthy disregard for grammar.