champagne1982
Dangerous Liaison
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2002
- Posts
- 7,671
Well, I chose options one and two (you all knew you could pick more than one, I hope?). I have been toying with an essay on how to break a poem and during that writing I've come to realize the complications surrounding the issue. There are many ways to determine where you should break a line of verse in a poem. In fact, with the adoption of a current trend toward prose poetry, line breaks have become mired in even thicker muck.
With formula poems where rhythm, end rhyme or both are set devices, line breaks are easy, since the choice isn't really up to the poet. How the poet ends the line is still his to determine, but it will always fall after whatever metrical foot required by the form.
Free verse has a multitude of choices all jumbled in amidst the poet's own perception of what they mean or want to say and how they'd like it to sound when they do present their poetry. Line breaking is personal and like poems for the panty drawer, can be as exclusive to their composition as the writer wants them to be.
Sometimes, there's punctuation in a poem and the line breaks become a form of punctuation in themselves. In effect, signalling the reader to pause here, before your eye moves back and down to the next word. Most often when reading, I like to linger on the end word and then on the verse it's in as a whole. Clever enjambment can trick me into reading on past the break though, so the poet needs to be clear in their thinking about what their devices are doing to their reader.
If there's a significant thought being expressed then should the thought be allowed to continue, unbroken, until the reader goes cross-eyed and becomes breathless? I believe it's up to the poet to find a better way to express the idea, so that no matter if they let the verse run away or if they break after each word, the reader can nod and say, "Yeah, I get that."
When there's a line that hovers over the body of the poem, like a springboard over a pool, the writer needs to examine that verse. He should test it for concise expression of the thought, and if so, then write it to include a logical break earlier in the verse. Don't write it and then look for an important word, it should be composed so that no matter where the break comes, the important word is where you want it to be. Of course, a springboard may be exactly what you want the word to stand on, too. As long as the poet decides and not the verse.
Own your poetry. Don't let the words drive the poet, instead take the wheel and make you, the poet, steer the words. Let feelings map your route, but never let them step on the gas once you're out of their neighbourhood.
Cut unneccessary adjectives and adverbs from the verse, don't say "tropical sky blue", learn that that shade is called "cerulean". Don't say "cerulean blue" that's redundant since cerulean is already telling the reader "blue". Hopefully, that sort of editing would shrink the line length enough to fit it into the shape of the poem and not leave the reader dangling over the deep end.
With such a public display of artifice as line and stanza breaking become, the poet really has to determine if they want their verse to be traditional, avant garde or flamboyantly twisted. Personality will shine through no matter how you choose to break a poem.
With formula poems where rhythm, end rhyme or both are set devices, line breaks are easy, since the choice isn't really up to the poet. How the poet ends the line is still his to determine, but it will always fall after whatever metrical foot required by the form.
Free verse has a multitude of choices all jumbled in amidst the poet's own perception of what they mean or want to say and how they'd like it to sound when they do present their poetry. Line breaking is personal and like poems for the panty drawer, can be as exclusive to their composition as the writer wants them to be.
Sometimes, there's punctuation in a poem and the line breaks become a form of punctuation in themselves. In effect, signalling the reader to pause here, before your eye moves back and down to the next word. Most often when reading, I like to linger on the end word and then on the verse it's in as a whole. Clever enjambment can trick me into reading on past the break though, so the poet needs to be clear in their thinking about what their devices are doing to their reader.
If there's a significant thought being expressed then should the thought be allowed to continue, unbroken, until the reader goes cross-eyed and becomes breathless? I believe it's up to the poet to find a better way to express the idea, so that no matter if they let the verse run away or if they break after each word, the reader can nod and say, "Yeah, I get that."
When there's a line that hovers over the body of the poem, like a springboard over a pool, the writer needs to examine that verse. He should test it for concise expression of the thought, and if so, then write it to include a logical break earlier in the verse. Don't write it and then look for an important word, it should be composed so that no matter where the break comes, the important word is where you want it to be. Of course, a springboard may be exactly what you want the word to stand on, too. As long as the poet decides and not the verse.
Own your poetry. Don't let the words drive the poet, instead take the wheel and make you, the poet, steer the words. Let feelings map your route, but never let them step on the gas once you're out of their neighbourhood.
Cut unneccessary adjectives and adverbs from the verse, don't say "tropical sky blue", learn that that shade is called "cerulean". Don't say "cerulean blue" that's redundant since cerulean is already telling the reader "blue". Hopefully, that sort of editing would shrink the line length enough to fit it into the shape of the poem and not leave the reader dangling over the deep end.
With such a public display of artifice as line and stanza breaking become, the poet really has to determine if they want their verse to be traditional, avant garde or flamboyantly twisted. Personality will shine through no matter how you choose to break a poem.
