Distance

[milo]

What criteria are you using to select these line breaks.  It seems like you are measuring them out like pieces of lumber.

Well, thank you (I think) for your insight - you made me really analyze what I did, which is what I am asking for here.  There are a few different  criteria I use for deciding where line breaks, but in this case I broke the stanzas the way I did based on the age of the narrator - the first stanza describing things she could not, or did not know when she was a very young adult.  The second stanza for when she starts to rethink many of the things she thought she knew.  And the last stanza for when she reached a new understanding that could only come with age.  As for the individual line breaks, after reading the poem out loud many times, I settled on these breaks, based on those places I felt would benefit from a hard break, both because of the way it sounds, and based on the content of the line.  What criteria do you think would work better?  Thank you again...

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Line breaks are actually pretty important in poetry.  We have had several discussions on this very site on both the importance of them and what criteria might be used to select them.  The word that ends a line in poetry gets the most emphasis on the line so at the very least, the importance or impact of the word should be used in the selection.  Some go the the extreme of only breaking on words that point to the central metaphor.  line breaks can be used to add double entendre, controlled ambiguity and even create subtle metaphors simply through the line break.  Most poetry books will have a chapter or 2 on breaks or enjambment alone.  Most people would say never to break on prepositions or conjunctions.  Some would continue to suggest only breaking on nouns or verbs (the power words in poetry.)

Breaking on a word like "or" or breaking a thought  up with

 . . .has little
to do . . .

show s a certain disrespect to your reader and to the poem.

I would suggest you at least give it some thought as it will improve all of your poetry immensely.