Take a Break - Debbie Guzzi's Blog

Poem Structure - Lines and Stanzas

http://www.creative-writing-now.com/poem-structure.html

This page is an introduction to poem structure and poetry techniques. What’s the best way to
divide your poetry into lines? (Hint: "at random" is not the right answer!)

Poem structure - the line is a building block

The basic building block of prose (writing that isn't poetry) is the sentence. But poetry has
something else -- the poetic line. Poets decide how long each line is going to be. That's why poetry often has a shape like this:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

That's the beginning of a poem by Robert Herrick. No matter where it is printed, the first line always
ends with the word "may" and the second line with the word "a-flying" because the poet has written it this way.

The poet is creating an end rhyme pattern above is a,b,a,b. If you print a piece of prose such as a short story, the length of the lines will depend on the font size, the paper size, margins, etc. But in
poetry, the line is part of the work of art you have created. How it looks visually on the page affects the
readers response. The length of the lines and the line breaks are important choices that will affect many aspects of the reader's experience:

·       The sound of the poem - When people read your poem aloud, or in their heads, they will pause slightly at the end of each line.

·       The speed of reading - Shortening or lengthening the lines can speed up or slow down the way people read.

·       How the poem looks on the page - Does the poem look light, delicate, with a lot of white space around the lines? Or are the lines packed solidly together?

·       Emphasis - Words at the end of a line seem more important than words in the middle.

Poem structure - types of lines

If you are writing a poem in a standard form such as a sonnet, your choices about line length are
somewhat restricted by the rules of the form. However, you still have to decide how to fit the ideas and sentences of your poem over the lines. When you fit natural stopping points in a sentence to the end of your line, the reader takes a little pause. When a sentence or phrase continues from one line to the next, the reader feels pulled along. [This is called enjambment and is often used in Free Verse, less so in Rhyme.]  If your line break interrupts a sentence or idea in a surprising place, the effect
can be startling, suspenseful, or can highlight a certain phrase or double-meaning.

Lines that finish at ends of sentences or at natural stopping points (for example, at a comma) are
called end-stopped lines. Here's an example:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:

Lines that in the middle of the natural flow of a sentence are called run-on or enjambed lines.
Here's an example:

But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.    [Note the antiquated use of the capital T]

Here, Herrick interrupts the phrase "worst times" with a line break between "worst" and "times," focusing extra attention on the word "worst."

If you are writing in free verse, you have even more decisions to make than a poet writing in a
traditional form. You can decide to use short lines or long lines, or to vary the length. You can decide to stack your lines evenly along the left margin, or to use a looser or more graphical form. Some poets even write poems that are in the shape of the thing they are writing about, for example, a circular poem about the moon. You have many options, but these choices should never be made randomly.

Poem structure - stanzas

In prose, ideas are usually grouped together in paragraphs. In poems, lines are often grouped
together into what are called stanzas. Like paragraphs, stanzas are often used to organize ideas.

For example, here are the two final stanzas of the Robert Herrick's poem. In the first of these
stanzas, he is explaining that being young is great, but life just gets worse and worse as you get older. In the second one, he is saying: "So get married before you're too old and have lost your chance."

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

For a more detailed explanation of poem structure, I recommend the book Writing Poems by Boisseau, Wallace, and Mann. (This page makes use of some ideas from the book's third edition, by Robert Wallace, HarperCollins 1991.)

Poem Structure - Decisions about Form

So many decisions to make -- line length, line breaks, arrangement, speed, rhythm. How should you
choose? The right form for your poem depends on, and works with, the poem's content, or what it's about. If the poem is about flying, you probably don't want lines that feel slow and heavy. If you're writing a sad poem, short bouncy lines might not be the way to go.

You may feel overwhelmed by so many issues to think about. How can your inspiration flow freely if you have to keep track of all of these aspects of a poem? The answer is to do the work in two stages.

1.    
First, let your ideas flow. [Many poets get stuck in step one.]

2.    
Then, go back to the poem later and work on improving the poem structure and form.

In the second stage, it's a good idea to experiment a lot. Try breaking the lines and different ways
and compare the effects. Try changing the order of things. Try reorganizing things to move different words to the end of the lines so that the reader's attention goes to them. You've got nothing to lose -- you can always go back to an earlier version.

As you go through this process, ask yourself:

·       What is my poem about?

·       What feeling or mood do I want the reader to have?

·       Do I want the poem to move quickly or slowly? Are there places I want it to speed up or slow down?

·       What words or phrases do I want to highlight?

There are a lot of things to consider. But the more poetry you write -- and read, the more natural and instinctive some of these decisions about poem structure will become to you.

If you have a poem you’d like to work on the line breaks with let me
know, I’d be glad to help!