I’ve written many a poem and read many of a poem, and I have noticed something that I find interesting.

To me, each line in my poem is its own breathe, its own existence. I never deal with paragraphs in poems, I’ll have a two or more lines grouped together like a paragraph but each line is its own sentence. Everyone has there own style of writing and this is mines.

There are many people who will begin a line in a poem with the word “and”, even I have done this in past with my early work. I am no expert on grammar, that I can assure you off but in my mind, “and” is a continuation of a line and not the beginning of a line.

Example;

Evil wasp floats on to your skin
And with an enraged sting it departs
Leaving your painful existence behind

Personally I don’t think that reads that great, the use of the “and” screams out to me that’s a continuation of the 1st line. In my opinion, something like below would be better.

Evil wasp floats on to your skin
With an enraged sting it departs
Leaving your painful existence behind

See what I did there? All I did was just remove the word “and”, sometimes that’s all you have to do.

I also personally think that poetry is whatever you choose it to be, so by all means if you want to use “and” at the beginning of a line, then there’s no one but yourself that can stop you. I’m very much a believer in each to there own when it comes to opinions on varied things.

It’s if you wish to publish your poetry in magazines, books, etc that it might be worthwhile trying to find another word instead of using “and” or just remove the word “and” at the beginning of the line.