Thread: ENJAMBMENT
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Unread 12-09-2001, 06:54 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Interstanzaic enjambment can be employed to fine effect-by experts. Wilbur in Hamlen Brook, or Hecht in The Darkness And The Light Are Both Alike To Thee, for instance. But if we conceive of the stanza as the verse equivalent of the paragraph, there needs to be justification, both thematic and syntactic, for that stanza break. I often advise young poets who don't understand this to simply throughprint a poem where that justification is inadequate. Fussell has an excellent discussion of this in the chapter on stanza in Poetic Meter And Poetic Form.
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