The line is one of the most important parts of your poem. The way a line breaks, or does not break, can make a huge difference. Lines are the units that poets work in.
One thing that you may not have thought of before is line position. The end of the line is usually the most important position in the poem. Try an exercise. Look at several of your favorite poems, then read only the last word on each line. What do you see? Do they carry the importance that they should of? Would putting them in another position or using another word work better?
Remember the end of the line is a place of honor and demands your very best word choice. It is the turning point in your poem. A great poem to look observe this in is "Acquainted With the Night" by Robert Frost. His end words are very telling: night, rain, light, lane, beat, feet, cry, street, good-by ,height, sky, right, night. Don't you have a guess about the meaning of the poem just from his choice of end words? Try filling in the rest of each line with your own ideas with either a set pattern or no set pattern of rythmn. Then compare what you got with the Frost poem.
Another thing that you can do with the end of the line position is to look at the kind of words that will take you to the next line automatically. Some examples are: is, over, of, being, then and similar words. The words almost make readers ask, "As what?" "Over what?" These create tension.
As a writer you will have to chose whether you want a strong word or a fast word that will leave them wanting to get to the next line.
Gwendolyn Brooks does this with her poem, "We Real Cool". She uses the word "We" at the end of all the sentences except the last to get the reader to ask, "We what?"
Remember, people get an impression of your poem as soon as they look at it even before it is read. What does a short poem with short lines say? Often, to the reader, it says "This will be easy to read", and for some people that is important.
On the other hand, a poem that has longer lines may say to some people that the line is harder to read; to others it may suggest that great mysteries await in the poem. Try not to make the poem hazy with long lines though. Dr. Mary Anne Miller calls those "impenetrable haze poems". You want your reader to enjoy the reading.
It is the line that make poetry a poem and not prose. We need to spend some time looking at line length, syllables, word origin, punctuation, and rhythm.
"What makes poetry is the rhythm of the line. A line must have rhythm to be poetry and not prose. But, some lines can have free rhythm, which means rhyming that is irregular. Prose has no set rhyme and the distinction between the two can easily be misunderstood." (NotAdeadPoet)
Line length is important. A shorter line reads faster; therefore it moves the poem at a faster pace. A look at Carlos Williams poems: "The Red Wheelbarrow", or "Poem", are examples. So is my poem "Domesticity." Take a look at those and see how quickly they read. The power is in the images and the short choppy lines.
Obviously then, a longer line makes people slow down a little. Sometimes it is so long that it moves onto the next line. These are called Enjammed lines. Enjammed lines create tension that moves through to the next line.
The poem, "Dead", by Saran C. Harwell is a great example of this.
I personally prefer shorter lines; they seem to fit my style and tone better. You may find that longer lines are what work for you. Your own voice is important. Remember though when looking at long lines, to try to look at them critically. Are they holding too much weight; or are you trying to draw something out by using a long line? When the line is enjammed, the next line is indented. Whitman often did this in his writing. Try breaking up the line, read it both ways, OUT LOUD, to see how it flows.
Punctuation is also important. A poem can be written without punctuation, just using the end of the line to show readers where you are going. Punctuation is great though at giving the readers clues.
Punctuation shows were you want the reader to pause. This pause is called a caesura and often uses commas. This is a basic explanation of the complex term caesura, as you understand using punctuation better,you may want to learn more about this term.
To come to a stop you most often would use a period -- also know as an end stop. You can slow down more with the semi-colon. Then you can tell the reader you are going to list things with the colon. Also the dash -- can be used to set things apart that you want to draw attention to-- like punctuation here. Another useful technique is the use of parentheses ( )which give your reader some information.
You can also build a caesura without punctuation in a line. This is done by using words or sounds that will make the reader pause. Even plain white space can accomplish this.
Another that is important in the line is the choice of words for rhythm. Some words are Anglo-Saxon derived, such as bed, eat, large, fast. Some are Latin derived such as mattress, consume, gigantic and hastily. As you can see from these two groups of words, they have close meanings; yet each word has a powerful connotation of its own. Which word you chose is more than meaning though, it also talks about rhythm and tone. The word you chose should fit in the tone of the poem. If you use a Latin derived word in the middle of an Anglo Saxon derived poem, you may defeat the purpose as it may look and feel out of place.
Also included in this are syllabic Qualities. A word can in itself slow down or speed up a line. Obviously a polysyllabic word, (many syllables) will take longer to read than a one syllable word. However, when we read, even some letters slow us down when reading. These include t, d, th, b, p, g, k, ng, f, v, m, n, nk, l, r, s, z, sh, ch, and j.
Try to remember to keep your line active. Use words that show action and not just ing words. Raced is a much stronger word than racing/; Jump is stronger than jumping.
One last thing is the placement of your line is regard to margins. Normally poems are written flush on the left margin, but use of the middle and right can be useful. Be careful with this though; too much playing with margins often looks very "comic book like" or distracts the reader from the words. A good poem to look at is Christina Rossetti's "A Pause of Thought", where she does a great job of using the right margin when she writes about fleeing, as if the words were fleeing away.
All of these things determine the speed and therefore the tension of the line. All of this is a lot to learn at once. Pick one or two ideas and learn to work with them in your poems before going on to master more of them.
A great way to do this is to go back over poems you have written, especially ones that either you think are great and want to make better; or they are not too good and you want to make them great. It is amazing what editing can do.
My sincerest thanks to ap poet notadeadpoet, who gave me a full critique of this. I have tried to fix everthing he pointed out. I definitely now know how much I have left to learn!
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kudos
I am glad you posted this. I have always struggled with free verse poems, and I believe this will help develop stronger ones. This is an exellent piece. -
Thank you. You may have read this before, it is in the syndicated columns here on ap. Glenda
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Excellent!
Did I read this before? Seems I read it, if not I read something similar and have since always looked at my ending words. I feel I have accomplished something if they also tell the story. Great column! -
Thank you for your wonderful comments about this column. I hope to write more and I hope that group members will also write some columns. Glenda
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Wonderful column with a wealth of information. You have a wonderful teaching approach, too. Understandable, simple to follow yet holds depth. Thank you for sharing.
Belle
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Very Good.
Thank you for your information. I have learn to print it out nor do I need to save to be print. I am behind the times I am going to catch. While waitng for a meeting I can read underline and write plus highlight it help me to absorb it better .
Thank you for taking your time to help us.
Get a better feel of how to do things.
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My sincere thanks to ap poet notadeadpoet who gave me a complete critique of this piece. I only hope my edit gave it justice.
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Marvellous...
Glenda, what a rewarding poetry lesson and useful pointers you gave to the readers here. I honestly never stopped to think about the structure, punctuation and other amazing stuff you mention in your text. I have been writing poetry for over 30 years now and I became a fan of short, concise poems. I find reading other poets works, as well as our own, a refining and delightful exercise, enabling us to blossom and perceive the subtleness of this amazing art which is poetry.
Cheers
JP -
thanks for your very informative article I have printed your articles out and will keep them close and use them when I am writing Many thanks again To you I am so grateful for this help
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wow...this was good and helpful too
here are thanks from me to you
you taught without a lot of rules
and gave us many useful tools
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This was helpful and glad to know my short lined poems are not meaningless because they are not longer.
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Presentation is important in poetry, I say it to people often. It is not just about the words themselves. I like to experiment with many ways. Shorter or longer poems. A good column.
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This will also go into my favorites. Hugs, Patricia
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brilliant
i enjoy reading the colums because it is god to get anothers point of view and sometimes they way it is written makes the lightbulb turn on...it forces me as well to look at my own writing and examine them again or think about how i want the words and strengths or weakness of the poem to be presented to the reader. again as the columns are by fellow poets i believe they have an understanding of poetry and it is done in a friendly tone so the reader is not made to feel inadequate which i think is important it is the best way to learn...not everyone can relate to formal structured lesson the columns provide information to make us think about how better to write and present our work.. thank you -
It's weird... I keep reading these columns but it all seems like common knowledge to me. However, I do think it will help other people so I'm glad you've shared it.
I've found it kind of odd how some people have broken their poetry around here. Nice column. -
I found this to be very informative and helpful. The part about the importance of the last word of a line was particularly interesting for me, because it forced me to notice that I have some weaknesses in that area, and encouraged me to try to work out some of the kinks in the things I write. This column had a nice, friendly tone that really made it sound like you genuinely wanted to help people, and that's the best way to come across when you want someone to learn from your writing. Nicely written, and thanks for sharing this information. It definitely made me think a lot.
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Glenda,
This is a great article. I enjoyed it and explains a lot. It will improve my ideas. I do request of you a link or some actual examples of the poems you wrote about. It certainly helps me and perhaps other readers of exactly what you mean. Certainly would prevent me from moving from this article to search for something and well, my train of thought could be derailed in the process.
Great article. -
Thanks so much for your efforts here Glenda! this was a nice refresher for me, and other than some small grammatical or spelling errors, very well thought out! One thing my professors always stressed, was to look at a line and ask myself, "what words can I take out, and still keep the meaning and emphasis the same, or even make it more powerful." A lot of folks think you have to have the same amount of beats to each sentence/line to make it readable in poetic form, but what that ends up often doing is making the poem too homogeneous and the reader gets caught up in the "la-la-la-la-lala-la-la's!" and they can't concentrate on the real meaning of the piece. I would suggest to anyone, write a line, or a stanza, read it back to yourself, and if you feel you had to force a sentence to "make it fit," then you should probably change it. Anyway, thanks again for presenting this! I hope it helps others as it has helped me! be well! john
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QUITE imsightful, not just for beginners but also for the pros.
At such very helpful, one can always recall on this, whenever. -
Yay! This is a wonderful informative column you have written here. This is very useful material. Thanks!
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helpful
This writing is very helpful to me. I often wondered how poets knew to finish a line, but I did not think of all these ideas you have mentioned. Thank you. There is so much to think of in a single poem. I need to make choices now, about which structures I like better. It seems the structure often flows from the ideas expressed and so does the line as you have said. Many thanks for this. -
Williamstown, You make a very valid and important point. I do not include more than I did as I wanted this to be a very simple, easy to follow, kind of introduction to the line. The information you have would be more of a lesson two. The use of foreign words can be very dramatic and usefull but also must be skillfully done.
I recently went to a poetry reading with a well-known and well-published poet, and she used a lot of Spanish (and she is not) and it was distracted.
Thank for your nice comment. -
Yes of course you may print this for learning. I do that too. Sometimes it is better if I can read it off the computer.
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Answer to pray
Could I please copy this page for learning purpose. I use high lighter with colors one color is important detail and so on so forth if not I will have to think of a new way to learn.
It is very good,great ideas I have not thought about -
A very informative work here, for which I thank you. Have never considered the mixing of Anglo-Saxon and Latin words before. If so one must consider Norman, and also words introduced from other cultures. I am thinking of Indian: Bazaar, bungalow, khaki, and many others.
Personally I try to chose the most suitable word, bearing in mind your parameters, regardless of its origin. If it meets the flow, pattern, and exactly fits the meaning I am intending, then that`s fine. I will sometimes use an out of context word to "shock" readers out of purely sonambulistic or stuporific reading. For example,neither of these two words exist. Yet I think you know exctly what they mean. I rest my case. -
This is a good colunm, I agree with the fact that people should read their work out loud especially, I read my work alot, but not bc I am arrogant, but to make sure it flows, and usually if I write something today, tomorrow i will see it differently and change it a little and it sounds better
This was a good refresher for me, and tought me some new things, I never took a class on poetry, never studied it or read anything really on it till now, i figure I should start learning as much as I can so I can be more versatile thank you for sharing.
xoxox
celeste -
Another great article here that I have found at this site - really helpful and easy to read/understand!
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Great column, and extremely helpful! Thanks for posting--I'm sure many people in the community will benefit from reading what you have to say. Keep it up!
~Kelsey -
This is a great column. You do have a misspelling in the title. I can't wait to see it finished. I hope you submit it to Kevin.
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This is really good. I hope you plan to add more to it, as it seems that way to me. Great job.
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