Not, I say! Your fiddling with capital letters only adds another element to consider and detract from the actual writing process! If they are all capped there is nothing extra to dwell on!

Both of you are correct in some ways. The changing of caps to no caps isn't all that distracting but sometimes people will look for a meaning were there is none. I have read several poems that are done in both styles and I can say my personal preference lies with all the caps, but saying all line in poetry should be capitalized is like saying all line in a paragraph should be. (Kind of like what Sheol said before) My nee-chan does poetry in every style included text chat and some people hate it some people love it. I asked my Lit. teacher and she said that all caps is for only formal poetry and schools normally only teach formal. She then proceded to rant about not using 'you' or text chat in poems so...yeah.

(For the record, we're not actually arguing, me and Quiet, just seem to have forgone emotes.)

And I'm curious about this not using "you" business you mention. Can you elaborate? I've never heard that before.

It a thing for formal writing you can never address the reader. It is okay in coversation because pretty much anything goes in conversation.

The 'you' thing is in the main text of the book, appatently breaking the fourth wall isn't allowed even if the book is written in first or second person. It is supposedly an archanic grammmar rule so, of course, most Americans forgo it.
My teacher also said something about interactive books not being real books because they use you in the main text. I personally aften ingore this rule if writing in first person even if I'm normally a stickler for the rules.

Hmm. And do the language police come to arrest you if you break the 4th wall? :p

Really, though, in poetry I don't see how that's even remotely applicable. "You" in a poem has as much to do with the reader as "I" does with the poet (i.e. very little).

The language police? Never heard of them. I do however know quite a few Grammar Patrolers. The just hound you about the smallest of grammatical errors.

I know about the 'you' not meaning much but I can't change the rules of formal writing though I can say "Screw 'em". My 8th grade grammer teacher would always say that "Yinz(Penslyvianian for Y'all) can do as ye wish in speach. But when you write it must be in proper grammatical structure." She was very linient on poems saying that poems were emotions in word form and if emotions aren't restricted to proper grammar then why should poems? And in poems I do agree that pretty much all tipical grammer rules can be scraped.

I've truly never heard that in the plethora of English courses I've taken.

And, really, the bottom line for me is: if something makes for effective writing, do it. If a rule is holding you back, ignore it. Really, it's called "creative" writing for a reason. Shackling yourself into archaic forms is no good if its repressing your ability to creatively express yourself.

(Do note the impersonal "you" in that paragraph. :D)

I'm agreeing with that statement.

You have never heard of the 'you' rule? I'm majoring in theatre and I've heard of it. This might be because I keep all my notes and every day in 6th through 9th grade it was the same basic grammar rules for formal writing:
1)Grammar (Caps/puncuation/verb tenses)
2) No slang
3)Word Choice
4) No contractions
5) Do not start a sentance with then, well, and
6)Do not use you
7)Do not use the same adjectives in the same paragraphs
8) Indent
9) Never use alot
10) Also never use 'in my opinion' or 'I think'

I occasionally scrap number 1 though. I start writing in past tense, shift to present tense, and end in futer tense. One of my Literature teachers loved it the others have hated it.

Is that formal writing for academic essays and the like? Because that's completely different. :p

I'm wholly in favor of obeying the rules there. And the "you" thing makes perfect sense in that context. You don't address your audience in that sort of writing, as a rule.

Second-person prose is very difficult to write in effectively, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it, but I do think it could potentially be done well in the right context, though I think it would have to be limited to shorter pieces.

On the other hand, I'm not really convinced that the essay structure really is the best way of organizing and conveying information. The literary theory essays I'm reading right now come off as complete gibberish and I can think of far, far easier ways to write the same information that would be more accessible to someone reading them. >_<

I think they apply to essays but that particular Liturature teacher had us write stories and books. She said they were the rules for all formal writing. All the prose we did were either first or third person. And I completly agree that it may not be the best wasy to organize certain ideas.

Those do sound more like rules for academic writing. Looking back I think I must have had a lot of very liberal English teachers given I've heard of some of those rules but only within certain contexts. My grade 12 teacher had us write in a number of different styles to cover basics, like descriptive, exposition, instructive (which was written in second person) persuasive, etc.

On the academic end, "but" was another word that was typically improper to start a sentence with, but that has changed over time. One of my college professors even brought it up. Same with "I." It's becoming more acceptable to make personal statements in papers because it is acknowledged that people have their own thoughts and material to add to topics in question. The paper, however, should not be flooded with them.

There are rules, and there are areas where certain rules don't apply. Writing wouldn't evolve if people weren't in the habit of messing around with it on occasion.

Yeah, if people did not play with writing we would still be using thee and thou. Not that some of us still don't but a vast majority have moved onto 'you'.

Those two forms of address weren't exclusive. If you you know any French, they're similar to "tu" and "vous", with "thou" being a casual form of reference, and "you" being a respectful one. That probably seems backwards, and you can blame the King James Bible for that, since they thought it was best to address God as a friend, not as a superior (why?) and it's since been memetically accepted by our culture that "thou" is the formal form of address.

I was not aware of that, probably because I can't speak any French. This conversation makes me want to look up different rules for formal writing in different languages even though I can't speak or write them with out butchering them.

That came up a lot in War and Peace actually, how a character would use the formal "you" rather than the personal "thou" and that was Russian. ;)

It could reflect on how a person felt about the person they were talking to at the time. For instance, one character always adressed his beloved cousin as "thou" but after the potential marriage they both wanted became obvious it wouldn't happen, he started using "you" in a potential effort to detach himself.

Yeah, it's a feature in several languages. I'm pretty sure Latin has it, too.