Night Moves

[71degrees]

My criteria for line breaks is akin to the stokes of a painter, or even the color and shading itself. Or any other "artistic" decision in whatever medium is open. It's what strikes me as an artist in how I should deliver the intended image. A large portion of my edits have to do with how a poem looks on the page. I, too, am curious…why do you ask?

As for your second inquiry….what do you consider "flat prose?" Or for that matter, prose poetry? Again, just curious as to why you ask this instead of offering a critique of a "poem" that I don't consider falling into either category.

Regards, 71degrees

I ask because the linebreaks seem completely arbitrary and ineffectual to me but I thought you may have had some intention behind them. You don't seem to. you should reconsider them to produce the important effects that line breaks should produce in poetry. Or you should eliminate them entirely.

as a reader, I am unlikely to get past such lines like this:

with you

to consider it for further critique. you should fix that first. Then I would be able to offer more.

Look here:

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/showthread.php?tid=4281

Well, if you can't get by something, then you can't get by something. Thanks for the look. I will go w/folks who have something concrete to offer.

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I think this is a rather unique piece, I like it very much. I think I might choose another word rather than acquainted to describe the feeling of awkwardness or having grown apart in the first stanza, no longer comfortable or at ease with you. Regarding the line breaks, when you are reading your poem I think the line breaks should fall where you feel them. This has fine potential, you can make something really great with this.
Heart

Heart: Thanks. You may be right about "acquainted"…it's my Father and I needed a word that showed our separation and the "length" we have grown apart from family to stranger due to his Alzheimer's. Will think hard on this. I agree about line breaks. Sometimes, they're the most personal parts of the poem.