Comments on: workshop redux: give me a (line) break

By: David Moolten

David Moolten — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:11:19 +0000

Thank you for the feedback Allison, and you’re welcome.

By: durazzi

durazzi — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:55:38 +0000

Thank you so much for this article! I struggle with the line and appreciate the thoughtful discussion. The exercise was very, very helpful.

By: David Moolten

David Moolten — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:24:22 +0000

Thank you Pamela; I’m glad you found this useful!

By: Poetry News For February 24, 2010 | Poetry Hut Blog

Poetry News For February 24, 2010 | Poetry Hut Blog — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:00:56 +0000

[...] workshop redux: give me a (line) break [...]

By: pamela sayers

pamela sayers — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:03:31 +0000

David,
Very interesting article and I certainly learned something. Thanks. I also have to see if I can get your book.

Pamela

By: David Moolten

David Moolten — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:42:53 +0000

Thanks so much Barry. I couldn’t improve that poem either, and I’d be more than a little impressed by anyone who could. Wright wrote some great prose poems too. One of my favorites is “Honey” which was published posthumously. He was an enigmatic figure, and a heck of a good poet, whether he was writing formal verse, free verse, prose poems, whatever.

By: David Moolten

David Moolten — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:37:27 +0000

Thanks Therese, for your insight. You’re right. Line breaks (like many “craft” topics) are hardly a settled issue–just one more thing to be conscious of. And as with most things, at least for me, it’s easier to apply hindsight to someone else’s work and say what they did, than it is to know what to do in my own.

By: Barry Davis

Barry Davis — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:58:17 +0000

Thanks, David.

I know the poem, so I cheated and read the “final” version first. Then I read your excellent analysis.

And no, I don’t think it should have been a prose poem. And no, I don’t think I could improve it.

I’ll have to hunt up your book.

By: Therese L. Broderick

Therese L. Broderick — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:34:44 +0000

I love reading essays that provide close analysis of poetry. David, thank you so much for this articulate and insightful piece about line breaks. Reading it, I learned not only about the technique of breaking lines, but also about how, in this Wright poem especially, those line breaks signal one man’s transformation (into a different kind of poet, into a different kind of man). Fascinating!

In many of my own poems, I have put “to” and other prepositions and small words at the ends of lines, at the line break. Maybe I need to reconsider that…

I once bought a small journal of micro-essays about the line and the line break. Lots of different opinions abound! And at least one other poet has written that maybe the term “line break” is misleading, because the line isn’t really broken at that place on the page, it’s ended there (the sentence may be broken there, instead).

So there’s so much to learn about line breaks.

Thank you, David, for this excellent article!