A wise person once said: if a poem doesn't contain any noteworthy poetic elements besides arbitrary line breaks, it's probably not a good poem. Line breaks are a powerful and useful tool, but they must have a purpose. They can be used for cadence, for emphasis, or de-emphasisis. They most notably place additional emphasis on the words that fall on the beginning and end of lines. They can create structure and pattern in what is otherwise free verse.
Very often though, they are unfortunately simply used as a shortcut. A person reading a text with line breaks like this instead of full margin-to-margin text expects a poem, and mentally adjusts accordingly. It will automatically feel like a poem to the reader.
That is unearned, though. Random and liberal use of the enter key does not make you a poet.
In this particular instance I personally find that they actually detract from the writing itself. Though I am hardly an authority either.
Maybe.
I sometimes use line breaks as thought
train hiccups, especially in more prosaic poetry. It's
a tiny little anomaly, like an invisible mini-comma, that
enforces a pause between one word and the
next. Is that how this author is intending them?
I don't know.
I think sometimes authors use them to seem
more poetical
without a clear idea of what it means to be
more poetical.
But I also don't know myself, so I try
to assume it's intentional and specific and analyze from there.
But conclusions about poetry are difficult for me to reach.
6 replies
ok I have no knowledge of poetry, but what the heck is going on with these line breaks?
is it meant to be read in a certain cadence based on it?
A wise person once said: if a poem doesn't contain any noteworthy poetic elements besides arbitrary line breaks, it's probably not a good poem. Line breaks are a powerful and useful tool, but they must have a purpose. They can be used for cadence, for emphasis, or de-emphasisis. They most notably place additional emphasis on the words that fall on the beginning and end of lines. They can create structure and pattern in what is otherwise free verse.
Very often though, they are unfortunately simply used as a shortcut. A person reading a text with line breaks like this instead of full margin-to-margin text expects a poem, and mentally adjusts accordingly. It will automatically feel like a poem to the reader.
That is unearned, though. Random and liberal use of the enter key does not make you a poet.
In this particular instance I personally find that they actually detract from the writing itself. Though I am hardly an authority either.
Maybe.
I sometimes use line breaks as thought
train hiccups, especially in more prosaic poetry. It's
a tiny little anomaly, like an invisible mini-comma, that
enforces a pause between one word and the
next. Is that how this author is intending them?
I don't know.
I think sometimes authors use them to seem
more poetical
without a clear idea of what it means to be
more poetical.
But I also don't know myself, so I try
to assume it's intentional and specific and analyze from there.
But conclusions about poetry are difficult for me to reach.
If it doesn't have line breaks, it's just prose
Prose poetry exists.
Perhaps the prose poetry is the line breaks we made along the way