| Author | Message | ||
| Debbie Cathleen
New member Username: terpsichore Post Number: 14 Registered: 01-2007 |
Hi, my name is Debbie, I just thought I'd finally introduce myself since I'm new here. I was an English Lit major in college and then switched to nursing halfway through, yet I still harbor my secret writing side. Actually, I never took any writing classes, just did the typical essays that you're required to do for English classes. Plus, I'm very rusty on poetic techniques, so I need a lot of help. I've written poems infrequently my whole life; school and family always seemed to keep me from sitting down for long enough to really concentrate. So, I have a question about the use of enjambment (the first of many questions, I'm sure): What is the purpose of enjambment, if one could just continue the thought in the same line? and How do you know when to use it? I use it occasionally, but I don't actually know why I'm doing it. It just looks or sounds good to me at the time, I guess. But I've noticied, in reading other postings on here, that some of you employ it quite frequently. Does using it make a poem better? "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia" --E.L. Doctorow | ||
| Fred Longworth
Intermediate Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 984 Registered: 05-2006 |
No, enjambment is not always better, but sometimes, if you cut the line just right, it produces a tension- resolution effect. Other times it makes the lines harder to read. Some poets break their lines at exact syntactic boundaries. This generates a high degree of predictability, which makes the poem less interesting. Fr ed | ||
| S. Thomas Summers
Valued Member Username: s_thomas_summers Post Number: 159 Registered: 10-2006 |
you need to discover a balance. enjambments can charge a poem/electrify it. thay can also make for a difficult read. welcome. i pretty new too. Visit my blog!!! Tell me what you're thinking!!! www.poetry-is.blogspot.com | ||
| Jana Bouma
Valued Member Username: violamama Post Number: 109 Registered: 06-2006 |
Welcome to Wild, Debbie! You might want to cruise over to the Wild's Naturopathy Forum (the library), click on "Poetry Techniques," and read "An article on line breaks." Plenty of other good articles there, too! Jana | ||
| Jana Bouma
Valued Member Username: violamama Post Number: 110 Registered: 06-2006 |
Oh--I didn't remember it until just now, but in the "Poetry Techniques" topic, there's a link to and article on enjambment, too! Jana | ||
| Gary Blankenship
Senior Member Username: garyb Post Number: 10597 Registered: 07-2001 |
some po ets use enjam bment to carry a thought through the lines Debbie, welcome to Wild. Practice, prac tice, practice until you feel comfortable Smiles. Gary A River Transformed The Dawg House January 2007 and last FireWeed | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 9466 Registered: 11-1998 |
Welcome to Wild, Debbie. Enjambment is quite a fascinating topic and could keep poets debating back and forth for centuries. Here's the link to the article Jana mentioned in our NATUROPATHY (library) Forum: An Article on Enjambment And another you might find useful: Enjambment Article As Jana said (thanks for the plug, honey!), there are many good discussions saved in the Library forum here. When you have the time, we highly recommend you browse around in there. Best, M | ||
| Laura Polley
New member Username: lpolley Post Number: 31 Registered: 06-2006 |
Hi Debbie, Enjambment has been explained to me as "playing the line against the sentence." That is, one might use enjambment to move the sentence in a different direction than you have led the reader to expect it to go. This keeps an element of surprise and innovation in the poem, which as Fred says, can keep it from becoming predictable and boring. Enj. is also a way to capitalize on the momentary, almost breathless pauses at a line break before the eye continues down to the next line. This is a great spot to place key words, or words which you would like to carry greater emotional weight. For this reason "end words"--those at the end of lines (not always at the end of sentences too) are often paid special attention by both poets and readers--they can convey much of the intent and effect of the poem. Enj. provides a "counterpoint" to the sentence, a kind of parallel universe of "line logic" running in punchy contrast to the simple syntactical logic of the sentence. This can add music and multi-dimensional interest to the poem. One other way to use enj. to add surprise or to thwart expectations is to end a line with a word that appears to be, say, an adjective, for example, only to have the next line show that the word was actually used as a verb all along. I tried this in the following example: Ex. "I hear her voice clear/ the great hurdle of years" You can play with parts of speech in this way, and really milk a lot of meanings out of a word at the end of a line. Kind of a "two (or three) for one" deal. From what I've learned so far, in writing poetry, word choice is crucial. Words in poems must stand responsible for all of their connotations, and all of them should work for the poem's purposes. Enjambment can help bring out some of the less remembered implications of words. Good luck in all your efforts! Laura |
