Break it to me gently

Perhaps you, like me, have always been somewhat mystified about the whys and wherefores of a poem's line breaks. In formally structured poetry, this is not an issue; the meter or a certain number of syllables will dictate the break. But in the case of free verse, a lot of times, I have suspected poets were just winging it.

But maybe I have just been projecting.

In my poem in my first post, "A Poem's Bio," I was definitely winging it. I have since read in Jerome Judson's book, The Poet's Handbook, that line breaks like the ones I used in that poem are deemed "rhetorical" because they "coincide with natural pauses or units of meaning." Judson also mentioned that "rhetorical line breaks generally make for rather dull poetry," and I realize now he's pretty much right about that.

Another way to break lines is to use a device called "enjambment." This is when right in the middle of the thought or sentence, the line stops and the thought or sentence continues in the next line. "They keep jerking you around the corner to complete the phrases rather than letting you rest at the ends of phrases," wrote Judson.

But where does one stop and start again when using enjambment? In Ted Kooser's book, The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets, he suggests ending the line with a strong verb:

John ran to the end of the line and leapt

into space

Because there is a slight pause at the end of every line, something called a "half comma" by the poet Denise Levertov (1923-1997), the word "leapt" hangs out there for just a nanosecond, and it is as if John is suspended ever so briefly mid-air. The thing to realize here is that any word at the end of a line is naturally emphasized. Kooser, the 13th U.S. Poet Laureate who I was once lucky enough to meet in person, also shows what it would be like if the poem were structured like this:

John ran to the end of the line and

leapt into space

"In this latter instance," Kooser said, "the conjunction, followed by the white space, provides a little suspense: What is John going to do?"



Walt Whitman (1819-1892)



Finally, in the case of free verse, there is the "closed" line in which the thought or sentence is completed. Take, for example, this passage from Walt Whitman's (1819-1892) "Song of Myself":

Stop this day and night with me and you shall

     possess the origin of all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there
     are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, 
     nor look through the eyes of the dead,
     nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take
     things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from
     your self.




(Note that when a line goes beyond the right-hand margin of the page, or computer screen as the case may be, it is conventional to indent the rest of the line as it is continued so the reader knows it is part of the previous line.)

When to choose enjambment over closed, long lines over short? In this way, poetry is not any different from prose. Shorter lines in poetry, like short sentences in prose, heighten tension. Longer lines are used for larger, sweeping visions. Closed lines generate closure.

So here I leave you with a poem I wrote that deliberately enjambed two-word lines. As you can probably imagine, two-word lines all the way through a poem can make it pretty intense. I won't tell you what it's about (unless you ask), but will just clarify that it doesn't mean I'm all Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) or Anne Sexton (1928-1974) suicidal-like. I wrote this as an analogy for a specific action, but then I realized it could be illustrative of many more things than just what I initially had in mind. You will probably read it and compare it to something completely different and it will be, hopefully, relevant to you in your own way. Anyway, here you go:

This Sweat

Startled you
ordinary Sue
not Spiderman
inch two
size 10s
toes over
skinny ledge
look down
several stories
know fear
gust or
wrong move
can bring
what some
call folly
tumbling to
ugly death
yet you
like Petit’s
high-wire act
you invited
this sweat
you clench
your teeth
back flat
clammy palms
fingers splayed
against stark
white granite
remind yourself
to breathe
to act
as if
life’s normal
then you
notice that
delivery man
greeting that
grocer unloads
fresh veggies
gulls squawk
wait to
swoop upon
black wilted
lettuce leaf
this view
holds catches
calms you
now it
could be
ages or
a while
anyway until
you decide
you’re done
then crawl
back inside
one lone
open window
where there
your friends
sit lounge
laugh butts
to couch
watching holiday
college football
bowl games

Kathie Meyer, the Infant Poet