Poetry and Site Design

by: S.L. Corsua

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An Affair With Line Breaks

Now, here's a bonus: a link to a portion of the handbook, Dictionary of Poetic Terms by Jack Myers, Jack Elliott Myers, and Don C. Wukasch, pages of which are available for viewing online, via Google Book Search. (Tip: Once the page loads, hit the 'refresh' button. Oh, and don't be deceived by the title of the book; it functions more like an encyclopedia than a run-of-the-mill dictionary.) The topic I've highlighted here is that of "The Character of Line Endings" with an explanation of the three types of line breaks (according to the effect thereof), namely: (1) anticipatory, (2) transformational, and (3) emphatic.

I have always loved playing with words. Reading stories, telling stories, writing scripts, acting them out before an audience, directing and/or performing them onstage, writing endless pages of narratives, learning jargon in different fields, and arguing/debating 'with' them and 'against' them. When I crossed over from prose to poetry, I discovered something else that I loved instantly: playing with line breaks -- a fitting complement to my fascination with the utility of words.

I was enjambing lines even before I learned what in blazes enjambment meant in poetry. This technique gave me room for experimenting not only with the effect of end-words (visually, and by way of sound) and of pauses, but also with layering meanings (that of a line read separately vis-a-vis that of two or more lines read together). In addition, enjambment paved the way for fluidity, for seamless continuity of sense from one line to another (which appealed to me for I had been used to the rigors of prose writing).

Where I break lines is thus something I consider from Line 1 and so forth, and which I rethink while editing the poem. Moving words from the end of a line to the beginning of another -- to change or add meaning, and to strategically create effect -- is thus an incredibly useful, flexible means for purposes of how I say what I intend to say, and at what pace, with a considerable latitude for 'reader interpretation.'

Do have a look at the relevant portion of the book. I highly recommend it (not just the emphasized topic of line breaks, but the whole handbook) for writers of poetry. It is, after all, an exhaustive collection of poetic terms, notably with a fair ease in providing explanations without the heavy bombardment of jargons explaining jargons, and yet without being vague or simplistic. And it's available for online viewing via Google Book Search which has a nifty "search in this book" feature; cross-referencing of terms is just a click away.

S.L. Corsua
11/11/08