Short grammar Q

[Liar]

I'm working on a poem thingy, and I'm stuck on a fine point of grammar in one strophe (or stanza, what is the difference?) :

Confident
that time for once
is on their side,
space their alone
to occupy.

Should that be 'their' or 'theirs'?
Or maybe 'their' on the first line and 'theirs' on the second?

I've tried looking it up, but without result, so I'm bugging you with it instead.

#L

 

[BooMerengue]

I'm working on a poem thingy, and I'm stuck on a fine point of grammar in one strophe (or stanza, what is the difference?) :

Confident
that time for once
is on their side,
space their alone
to occupy.

Should that be 'their' or 'theirs'?
Or maybe 'their' on the first line and 'theirs' on the second?

I've tried looking it up, but without result, so I'm bugging you with it instead.

#L

Bug me anytime! I'm pretty sure about this...

Confident
that time for once
is on their side,
space theirs alone
to occupy.

I think... LOL

 

[Liar]

What I thought too. Thx!

 

[MercyMia]

I agree with BooMerengue

 

[WickedEve]

Their

On another board I once frequented (where everyone seemed to have gigantic, throbbing brains) they mostly used strophe. It was a stanza if it had "a common pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines." They called everything else strophe, if I remember correctly.
I finally decided to just use stanza.

 

[Angeline]

According to Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms (and contradicting my own definition in the new poems thread just yesterday,lol):

Essentially "stanza" and "strophe" mean the same thing: shorter divisons of a poem; however, a distinction may be made if one thinks of strophes as short divisons of a poem having no specific length, and stanzas as having specific lengths.

And Boo is right for grammatical reasons I won't bore you with by trying to explain.

 

[WickedEve]

According to Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms (and contradicting my own definition in the new poems thread just yesterday,lol):

Essentially "stanza" and "strophe" mean the same thing: shorter divisons of a poem; however, a distinction may be made if one thinks of strophes as short divisons of a poem having no specific length, and stanzas as having specific lengths.

And Boo is right for grammatical reasons I won't bore you with by trying to explain.

So, the divisions in a sonnet, for example, would be stanzas, and the divisions in a poem that is free verse would be strophes? That's what I always assumed but just checking before I return to using strophe. There is nothing more embarrassing than mixing up one's strophes and stanzas.

 

[Angeline]

So, the divisions in a sonnet, for example, would be stanzas, and the divisions in a poem that is free verse would be strophes? That's what I always assumed but just checking before I return to using strophe. There is nothing more embarrassing than mixing up one's strophes and stanzas.

Well I did and I read the damn book, lol.

 

[champagne1982]

Ahhh, possessives...

[...]And Boo is right for grammatical reasons I won't bore you with by trying to explain.

Bug me anytime! I'm pretty sure about this...

Confident
that time for once
is on their side,
space theirs alone
to occupy.

I think... LOL

English is complicated.

I ... my thing or thing that is mine
you, singular ... your thing or thing that is yours.
he, she ... his, her thing or thing that is his, hers.
it ... its thing or thing that is its.
we ... our thing or thing that is ours.
you, plural ... all of your thing or thing that is all of yours.
they ... their thing or thing that is theirs.

When you begin to be specific in naming an object, that is when you will, usually, use the apostrophe before the letter S to show possession. For example: the tree's leaf, the bird's feather, Harry's ball's bounce or that one's thing.

I just know this muddied the water...

 

[BooMerengue]

TY Ange

Process of elimination... I knew it wasn't there or they're so their was right, and theirs is more than one their.