Line Breaks

[UselessBlueprint]

Reasons for a line break.

This is one of the most difficult things for me to interpret when reading a free verse poem. In my mind, and in my practice, I primarily use line breaks to create distance - a separation between elements that should not be near each other - reflecting a physical position or a mental separation (which I view differently than a pause in thought or speech). From what I have gathered briefly reading a crit or two here, it seems some prefer that line breaks relate to such a pause in thought or speech.

I suppose, just out of mild curiosity, what do you consider as you are thinking about where to break a line when you write in free verse?

[Achebe]

for me, only a natural pause in speech, which could be for emphasis or because you've run out of breath. I write a poem the way it reads in my head.

[just mercedes]

I've never actually thought much about line breaks while I'm writing - they go where they want, I'm just writing down the first draft. When I go back and revise, I'll play around with them.

Some forms mean you're working within an artificial boundary, with line breaks predetermined. With free verse they're about more than pauses, for me. They can emphasize words, ideas, sounds, rhymes, as well as relationships between all of those. They can change the way you the reader receive the same information.

Gwendolyn Brooks comes to mind, but just because she featured in my first lesson at CalTech today, which was all about Line Breaks. (Are you doing that course too?)

Anyway, just because I love it, her poem -

We real cool

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.


We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool”

Those line breaks reinforce the message of her poem in a very clever way. Compare their impact, with

We real cool.
We left school.
We lurk late.
We strike straight. etc

[ellajam]

Reasons for a line break.

This is one of the most difficult things for me to interpret when reading a free verse poem. In my mind, and in my practice, I primarily use line breaks to create distance - a separation between elements that should not be near each other - reflecting a physical position or a mental separation (which I view differently than a pause in thought or speech). From what I have gathered briefly reading a crit or two here, it seems some prefer that line breaks relate to such a pause in thought or speech.

I suppose, just out of mild curiosity, what do you consider as you are thinking about where to break a line when you write in free verse?

I think about this:

Someone told me once that you should have every line break point to the central metaphor. I kind of dismissed it at the time as impossible but I think now that ideally this is true.

The Line: http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-4281.html

The same holds true when writing in a form, it's just as important, a poem is a poem. It may be a little trickier but maybe not, line length is important in free verse too, I find I really can't just break on the word, I still have to manipulate the poem so the breaks fall at the end of a line length that keeps the poem true to what I want to end up with.

This thread on line length is also interesting. It got mucked up when True deleted a lot of his posts but milo quoted everything so I can still follow it. IMO worth the effort.
http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-11672.html

[UselessBlueprint]

for me, only a natural pause in speech, which could be for emphasis or because you've run out of breath. I write a poem the way it reads in my head.

See, to me, this is just silly now. It's how I wrote in high school, and it seemed cheap then too. Why have line breaks if it is only meant to mimic natural speech, which may vary from the reader's? Why not let the reader break the lines?

I've never actually thought much about line breaks while I'm writing - they go where they want, I'm just writing down the first draft.  When I go back and revise, I'll play around with them.

Some forms mean you're working within an artificial boundary, with line breaks predetermined. With free verse they're about more than pauses, for me. They can emphasize words, ideas, sounds, rhymes, as well as relationships between all of those. They can change the way you the reader receive the same information.

Gwendolyn Brooks comes to mind, but just because she featured in my first lesson at CalTech today, which was all about Line Breaks. (Are you doing that course too?)

I switch the positions of line breaks so much as I write. Much less for emphasizing words - it's all position for me (which may be related to my spatial reasoning and the hobbies/interests that result, e.g. reading maps, 3D puzzles, etc). Line breaks change the location and grouping of words, but they don't change the impact of the first and last, for example. I can understand the reason behind rhyme (or rhyme behind reason? ), however.

A wonderful example, though. I remember reading that one in my poetry class last fall (definitely not at CalTech, though. At that time I was attending Stony Brook University here in New York, though I have since transferred closer to my home). Though we talked little about line breaks, only about enjambment, specifically.

@ellajam, I'll look into that second thread soon. But in the first post of the first thread, all of Todd's points felt simplified to me. Lines ending on important words- a little blunt, obvious, simple even? Break where they are most interesting - broad, and more of an argument on enjambment. Same for the next point on giving the poem momentum - this seems to be a question of enjambment and naturalness.

When I read some poems here, I often feel the line breaks read arbitrarily. I want them to have purpose.

I like milo's point. Though I prefer if they point to subsequent metaphors as well.

[QDeathstar]

ug... is there a more over-rated poem.