Interrobang
May 11 2014


The exclamation mark
is a loaded spring

lifting off the page.
And the little dot its bulls-eye

nailed.
“Hooray”, it seems to say
with a winsome wink,

clenched fist, punching air
first across the finish.
Pleading “please, come dance with me

in my victory parade.”

But sometimes, they're chicken scratch
scattered over the page,

indifferent to the power
of scarcity, restraint.

Like rampant inflation

gold standard, debased,

with careless abandon

exclaiming bad taste.

“And so yesterday”, I yawn.
The newest bauble
is the interrobang,
a question mark, eyebrow raised quizzically,
followed by the exclamation's
vertical slash.
That takes you by the hand
and declares, emphatically
“how witty is that?!!”

I was reading an article that had, shall we say, a rather idiosyncratic use of punctuation. Except I found myself tongue-tied for the word "punctuation" (one of those moments that leave one alarmed about impending senility). So when I eventually came up with it a few seconds later, I rolled the word around on my tongue with a feeing of vindication and reassurance. And found I really liked the "punchy" sound of the word. Writing a "punctuation" poem might be fun, I thought.

I use the unfairly maligned (and too frequently misused) semi-colon more than anyone else I read. But my beloved semi-colons aren't fun. While the most abused bit of punctuation -- especially in this era of email and texting, where communication is conversational but not face-to-face -- is the exclamation mark. I'm guilty of this myself: trying to enlist the reader in my own enthusiasm; or sometimes jumping up and down to point out -- in case they missed it -- how brilliantly witty I just was. There is a kind of triumphalism in the exclamation mark: in the poem, the triumphal wink of having nailed it!

Ever since I discovered the word "interrobang" a few years ago (which, btw, is not new at all; I believe it was coined sometime in the 50s), I've loved the word. And it's also a bit of punctuation I, too, am prone to overuse. Once I got into this poem and found myself stuck, it became a great way to find my way out.