(It's like, especially when peopl ewerite free verse, they write these line breaks, and then in a reading they read against them completely - this happens all the time - then when you do see their poetry written down, it looks completely different to how they spoke it! So WHY did they write it like that?)
Sometimes poets choose to treat the written form of the poem and its visual presentation as an extra "channel" of information, using the line ends for significant words; arranging lines so that words in adjacent lines are interestingly juxtaposed, suggesting an additional image or thought, or adding additional emphasis; or using a linebreak to isolate an image that they want to draw particular attention to; or to suggest an alternative meaning that applies only to the isolated line, but not to the fuller phrase.
In many cases, I don't think the problem there lies in the writing, but in the reading. Why did they READ it like that? Their audience (!) then misses all the careful craft they put into the creation of the lines.
For instance, here's a poem by Denise Levertov that does many of these things. I've italicised bits that I've noticed:
The Metier of Blossoming
Fully occupied with growing--that's
the amaryllis. Growing especially
at night: it would take
only a bit more patience than I've got
to sit keeping watch with it till daylight;
the naked eye could register every hour's
increase in height. Like a child against a barn door,
proudly topping each year's achievement,
steadily up
goes each green stem, smooth, matte,
traces of reddish purple at the base, and almost
imperceptible vertical ridges
running the length of them:
Two robust stems from each bulb,
sometimes with sturdy leaves for company,
elegant sweeps of blade with rounded points.
Aloft, the gravid buds, shiny with fullness.
One morning--and so soon!--the first flower
has opened when you wake. Or you catch it poised
in a single, brief
moment of hesitation.
Next day, another,
shy at first like a foal,
even a third, a fourth,
carried triumphantly at the summit
of those strong columns, and each
a Juno, calm in brilliance,
a maiden giantess in modest splendor.
If humans could be
that intensely whole, undistracted, unhurried,
swift from sheer
unswerving impetus! If we could blossom
out of ourselves, giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing!
I notice it particularly in these last three lines:
If we could blossom - there's a coherent image
out of ourselves, giving - now she's changed the image: blossom by coming out of ourselves, by giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing! - she's changed it yet again: not just by giving, but by giving nothing imperfect. Furthermore, by isolating this last line, she emphasizes the idea. The envelope with "nothing" emphasizes it further.
I find this poem ends with *much* more of a bang than if it were broken the way the phrases might naturally break:
If we could blossom out of ourselves,
giving nothing imperfect,
withholding nothing.
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