A Herd of Apostrophes

There is a herd of Apostrophes,
chasing my pen’s silent moves,
across the paper.

They lay in wait,
where I do not want them to,
and eat all of the meaning
and the grammar from what I do.

The only natural predator of the Apostrophe,
is the full stop.

I only use those sparingly,
for I find a good read, and the delete key,
provide a much better remedy.

This is my review of your poem "A HERD OF APOSTROPHES"...

My first thought was "What a brilliant title". It lured me in. Having read your poem several times I'm no longer sure. Because you use the same phrase in the body of your work it somehow dilutes both. Maybe you should go with something simple and mysterious like simply "HERDS", so when the reader reaches the actual phrase they will be surprised and delighted by such a great image. I love the concept of the poem but I think it can be strengthened with some cutting and a change of tense, eg:

A herd of Apostrophes,
chase my pen’s silent moves,
across the paper...

The present tense adds immediacy. I wonder whether you could expand your concept of apostrophes as wildlife too, for example across wild plains of paper...?

They lay in wait,
where I do not want them to,
and eat all of the meaning
and the grammar from what I do.

Your meaning here is very clear but, again I think you could embellish your metaphor to the benefit of your poem. My head is full of the image of the FLESH upon meaning and grammar. And you have mixed your tenses in this stanza.

The only natural predator of the Apostrophe,
is the full stop.

I really like the idea of the fullstop being the "only natural predator of the Apostrophe", but the last two lines of your poem come across as a partial non-sequitur, in the sense that you are asking the reader to join you in making an intellectual leap. Your work is lucid enough to encourage us to make that leap because we can clearly see what you mean. But, for me, the void of possibility this leaves between the second stanza and that last two lines is frustrating. I'd like to see you developing the last idea, to witness the fullstop tearing the throat out of the apostrophe...

Of course, these are just my views. I really love the entire concept of this poem and I think your imagery has immense potential for a great poem. I hope you will consider my criticism as constructive observations. This is my first review since joining and I'm not sure what the proper conventions are yet, but I believe in being honest. This is a piece which I really like, but which I believe could be definitely improved.

Warmest regards,

Terry

<Added>

ps: if it's any reassurance, the apostrophe gets me every time! I see you only use one in the poem... pen's...pens?...pens'... don't ask me. where's the carviverous fullstop now? Grrr.

<Added>

oh... and I see I missed a bit of the poem... I thought it was just commentary.

Oops, sorry!

I only use those sparingly,
for I find a good read, and the delete key,
provide a much better remedy.

I really did misread and I apologise. I think this last bit completely robs your idea of it's (its? :-P) power... It really does feel like commentary, like you're trying to justify what preceeds. You don't need to. Your concept is powerful and this just feels like you're trying to make life easy for your reader. I think by including this you are unnecessarily revealing more than you need. You are so clear in the earlier parts that this observation is superfluous, IMHO...