Really there isn't a solid answer to this. It mostly comes down to the poet's personal preference. For me it has always been capitalizing each line of poetry. I don't know if it's just what I'm used to when I'm typing (I tend to not capitalize each line when I write it by hand) or if it is because I'm heavily influenced by a more traditional style.
My thoughts are starting to change on this idea for two reasons. First, as I research lit magazines and journals, what is getting published most often are pieces that don't look or feel in any way like traditional poetry, including no capitalization and shorter lines. The second reason is that as I work on my poetry project, quite a few of my pieces look off when every line is capitalized. Once I switched it to lowercase, it looked much better. I still have the tendency to capitalize the first line, but that seems a lot less distracting than having every line do the same thing.
What are your thoughts on poetry capitalization? Does it matter, or is the choice to capitalize or not capitalize important to the poem's message?
