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Young Writers Society


Lines are like rules, Let's Break Them



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Tue Feb 12, 2013 10:56 am
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Audy says...



Spoiler! :
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I've recently written about what poetry aims to do and have decided to follow up on a few quick thoughts on lines and breaks. This piece will primarily focus on free verse. There are others out there for metered/formal verse.

Here's a few things to consider when you write a line:

1) is your line exciting and engaging?

2) treat a line like how you would a sentence, the end of each line should follow and lead into the next.

3) read a line out-loud. does it flow? is it awkward?

4) can you take each line by itself, out of the context of the poem? can each line, essentially, be its own poem?

5) does your line contain an image? or a metaphor?

6) does your line have a voice?

7) is your line creative?

8 ) is it musical? contain rhyme/ slant-rhymes/ assonance/ simile/ metaphor / alliteration, etc. ?

9) does it have more than one meaning?

10) is your line concise, and at its most short and precise?

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Soft Breaks

Breaking the line
there are two kinds
one is the soft
break on a pause
a phrase or a comma
the end of a thought.

Soft breaks are usually smooth and easy to follow. Read the above example and take notice where your eyes linger and try to find which word is being emphasized in your mind.

Spoiler! :
Breaking the line
there are two kinds
one is the soft
break on a pause
a phrase or a comma
the end of a thought.

Normally, every poem puts its emphasis on 1) the first word of the piece and the 2) last word of the piece. There's also emphasis on the last word of each line, and that word, usually informs or leads on to the next. That's why you will often see rhymes at the end of a line. But if you look closely above, you'll see that "break" is also bolded. When you read this piece, did you also notice that break was emphasized in your mind?

That's because I lied. These aren't all soft breaks. There is one hard break, and that's the 4th line of the piece, where -- you've got it! the first word is emphasized.


When you write poetry, it is important that the word you choose to break (end a line) isn't weak or wimpy. Otherwise, what's going to happen is that weak words are going to be emphasized, whereas the more interesting words get overlooked. And even though your poem may be interesting, it's going to appear to sound boring. I could have very easily written:

Breaking the
lines there are
two kinds one is the
soft break on
(and so and so on)

But that is boring. Do you see the difference a simple decision such as a break can make?

Play with your breaks. Just like in the spoiler, where I had a whole bunch of soft breaks surrounding one hard break, you can vary it up a little for added emphasis.


Hard Breaks

So if a soft break is breaking the line where you would commonly end a sentence, or add a comma (pause), phrase, etc. then a hard break is going to be breaking the line where we /wouldn't/ normally have a pause. Such as breaking the line 1) between a noun and a verb, or 2) an adjective and a noun. These are the two most common types of hard breaks, and you will quickly find that when a poem is using soft breaks, or hard breaks -- it will sound different.


Consider:

These apple
seeds how sweet
they taste how smooth
they sense how royally
it sits upon the velvet
seat white
throne.


What are the emphasized words here? You'll notice, that the last word of every line is still emphasized. Also, some of the first words of each line, such as "apple / seeds" are emphasized as well. The hard breaks in this poem is what makes it interesting. If the poem were written:

these apple seeds
how sweet they taste
how smooth they sense
how royally it sits
upon the velvet seat white throne

it would be rather boring, right? But by breaking the lines at interesting places, the poem is engaging. I can almost feel the tongue swirling around that apple seed and picking at the teeth, and that's what poetry is essentially - it's an experience. You'll also notice that a "hard break" poem sounds differently from a "soft break" poem, sometimes, it's even difficult or tricky to read, because it's so ambiguous. That's why, most likely, when you're dealing with hard breaks, poets won't punctuation. Because each line if taken separately, creates a new kind of meaning. Look at each individual line:

"seeds how sweet" is a different and separate entity from "these apple seeds" and "how sweet they taste".

Cool, huh? Just one simple decision can add layers and layers of meaning and intrigue. So, my poets. Go out there and break your lines! Experiment!

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Last edited by Audy on Tue Feb 12, 2013 5:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
  





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Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:07 pm
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beckiw says...



This is probably really inappropriate but all I could think about when I saw this topic was this -

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'The creation of a single world comes from a huge number of fragments and chaos.' - Hayao Miyazaki
  








It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill —The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another.
— JRR Tolkien