[Katy Evans-Bush]

I've always loved EJ Thribb.

I AM thinking about this stuff! But flat out at work so all I can do is flit in & out, I'll post something at the weekend.

KEB

[nyctom]

This is where it is at, man. This stuff is what makes the po-mo poetry world tick.

It also happens to be a good reason why contemporary poetry is read by contemporary poets -


and absolutely no one else!

This contention--that contemporary poetry has "lost its audience" (and, by implication, that there was some nebulous Great Age of Poetry Readers prior to the coming of free verse)--has always been a popular one for defenders of New Formalism. In fact, the argument--along with most arguments defending New Formalism--have not changed one whit in the twenty-plus years since the Form Wars became a perennial favorite in the literary/critical journals; talk about the same old same old!

It is a convenient argument to make, because the necessary data to substantiate such a charge has never been investigated on a systematic basis.

When I read, yet again, this idea that contemporary poetry has killed off its potential audience, I am reminded of one of Virginia Woolf's favorite rhetorical tricks in her wonderful essay A Room of One's Own. To paraphrase, why doesn't an ambitious graduate student or professor crunch some publishing numbers? Take a look at how many books of poetry were sold--particularly in relation to the number of books sold as a whole for a given period (and correlated with any available statistics about percentage of literate individuals in a given society at a given time). Count the number, type, and column inches devoted to poets and poetry in major periodicals and journals for each period (say pre and post 1960 for the 20th century; or the 19th century as a whole).

One thing such an ambitious researcher will have to keep in mind is historical: the rise of the novel in the 19th century. There are several factors to keep in mind here: the extension of primary education to the middle and working classes, the rise of cheap, rentable book editions (the "triple deckers"); changing tastes.

Once this research is gathered and collated, I suspect that three hypotheses will hold true over time:

1. that the proportion of the literate public buying and reading poetry has not declined since the beginning of the twentieth century;

2. that the number of poetry volumes printed per annum since the nineteenth century has increased over time;

3. that the proportion of news stories devoted to the subject of poetry and poets in journals and newspapers has held steady or increased since the mid-twentieth century.

*

Too much time and ink and pixels have been expended on blame. Rather than pointing an accusatory finger at the "wrong kind" of poetry, perhaps a better expenditure of energy could be devoted to the teaching of poetry, particularly at the level of primary education.

Line breaks, of course, would be part of this education--but as Clive cogently points out, they are only a small factor, and not necessarily the most important one, in a poem as a whole.

I find it curious when discussions of free verse technique pop up in forums such as this that the primary--if not exclusive--focus has always been on the subject of line breaks. Perhaps this is because this particular technicality, so to speak, is the easiest to discuss. And even here there is a limit on what is discussed. I have rarely, if ever, seen a discussion extended to the complex and (to me at least) very interesting relationship of the line to the sentence. Or the impact of stanza forms--block text, couplets, triplets, quatrains, and the like--on a poem.

Just some thoughts. But I do hope that we can move on from accusatory fingers and unsubstantiated contentions. It would be a real change of pace in such discussions.

[oliver murray]

I agree with most of what Tom says above. In the Kinsella extract quoted by Mark I don't think the line breaks are particularly good, bad or indifferent by present day standards, and I find it hard to imagine any line-breaks that would lift this writing out of the ordinary. The poem may be brilliant in toto but the writing seems pretty undistinguished in the extract.

Let's face it, folks, whether we like it or not, flat lineated prose IS acceptable these days and widely published and praised. You might ask "what is the point?" but where else would you get random prose pieces of two or three hundred words in length published if it wasn't for a bit of quick lineation and the poetry journals? There is no market for short personal pieces or "descriptive writing" or plotless, characterless narratives in prose. In verse there are a hell of a lot of things to be put right before we come down to a relatively unimportant issue like line-breaks. I don't say they are UN-important, just that there is so much else wrong with much of the unrhythmic free verse we see that minutely scrutinising the line-breaks seems laughably pointless, like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

A few poems were published about sixty years ago which had "interesting" or grotesque line-breaks and without the line-breaks they were nothing. This doesn't work any more.
Fancy lineation and "lots of white space" all over the place are long-outworn gimmicks. We will, therefore, see plenty more of them in the future. And so it goes...

[Janet Kenny]

Well said Tom and Oliver.

I think it is very interesting to examine how most people divide their time and what they do with it. We all prevaricate a little about how much TV we watch. For some reason we are ashamed of this.

When I was a child there was no TV in my country and I mostly read for much the same reason that I now watch TV. I read all the time. Under the blankets with a torch--while riding my bicycle--in the bus--in the garden--at the beach. Reading books was what I did more than anything else.

Honesty compels me to admit that I now spend much less time reading than I did as a child or adolescent.

When I left school I worked as a nurse's aid in order to earn money to send myself to university. I was so exhausted, mentally and physically that all I could read was poetry. Novels were beyond me. I read poems every day for several months. I had always read a little poetry but only as a variation on other reading. Suddenly only poetry met my needs.

I suspect that poetry may now fulfil this need for an overworked commuting public who have little uninterrupted time and shorter concentration spans. Poetry can work like caffeine. It can give a charge to our batteries, emotionally and intellectually.

I exclude those whose headphones thump audibly. Poetry now competes with audio.

I think that line breaks are important but how anybody is to define that without having read a great deal of prose as well as poetry is beyond me?

I shrink when a line break seems wrong to me. When a thought is broken awkwardly, or, in metric poetry if a meter is weakened which usually weakens the thought anyway. I suspect that only poets who have read a great deal of prose will be able to make a poetic judgement. Poetry is not prose but unless one reads prose the difference will not be noticed.

Oliver, while it's true that short prose pieces with no narrative will not easily find a publisher I still don't think that qualifies it as poetry. If it's worth reading then I'm glad when it is published. I have rarely read such pieces and found them equal to most competent novelists or essayists. If there is an audience for them, that's fine, but I'm not part of it.

What does seem to be increasing is a love for writing poetry. A new thought has crystalised for me during this discussion. Poets must read prose as well as poetry.
Janet

[oliver murray]

Originally posted by Janet Kenny:

Oliver, while it's true that short prose pieces with no narrative will not easily find a publisher I still don't think that qualifies it as poetry.

Janet

Neither do I, Janet - that was my point, which I may not have made clearly enough. They will, however, often too easily, find a poetry journal. Somehow I have not completely cured myself of the habit of saying "poetry" when I mean "verse".

[Katy Evans-Bush]

Oliver says:

In verse there are a hell of a lot of things to be put right before we come down to a relatively unimportant issue like line-breaks. I don't say they are UN-important, just that there is so much else wrong with much of the unrhythmic free verse we see that minutely scrutinising the line-breaks seems laughably pointless, like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Actually Oliver, you're right - but I broached this discussion sort of as a way of looking at everything else, too, because the decision of how you break a line can rest on so many other factors. So many people writing free verse seem to think that the only tool they have to use is some sort of "anti-rhyme" - just as many people writing metrical poetry seem to just choose a rhyme-word and forget about things like vowel length, or what's coming up on the next line, or syntax.

I think lineation is the fault-line of poetry - it's where the other things make themselves felt.

Hmm, more pontificating, but no examples once again! This short post has been interrupted and now I have to go to bed...

KEB

PS - Janet, your statement is interesting. Of course poets should read everything they can, but I'd posit a proviso, which is that poets need to read prose criticaslly, for style, and to really feel and observe the language. One reason I can barely read novels any more is the badness of most fiction writing. The stylists are far between.

[Janet Kenny]

Katy you said: One reason I can barely read novels any more is the badness of most fiction writing. The stylists are far between.

I absolutely agree and that has a hell of a lot to do with the way publishing is run. I think that thirsty poets find as much refreshment in good prose as good poetry. In fact, it was prose that turned me back to poetry for both reasons. The good stuff was wonderful but in short supply and the shallowness of most fiction sent me screaming towards deeper waters.
I don't think earnest study will help much. What one needs is total immersion
Janet

[VictoriaGaile]

I think that line breaks are to free verse what rhyme is to metrical verse: the most obvious tool in the toolbox, and therefore the first one that beginners pick up and focus on. Beginners tend to focus on it exclusively both when writing and when critting.

But -- as I think Katy meant to emphasize when she started this topic -- it's a bit odd to talk about line *breaks* rather than talking about *lines*.

"The integrity of the line" is a standard that applies both to met and nonmet. It's all too possible to write bad verse that has the breaks in the "right" places (in met, at the right foot; in nonmet, to create a clever effect) and yet has very bad lines.

So what are the characteristics of a good line of verse? What *is* "the integrity of the line"? (which is a catchphrase I picked up from someone around here and tend to mutter frequently under my breath)

I tend to think a good line has integrity of content as well as integrity of breath or cadence.

In terms of content, a good line presents a single image, or a pair of images strikingly juxtaposed, or presents a single idea, or a single building-block of an idea. It's an image or idea that works when set in a frame by itself, which is what putting it in a line by itself does.

In terms of form (cadence or breath), a good line is one that has a shape to it - I want to say phrase, but with the understanding that I'm using phrase as in music, not phrase as in grammar. In metrical verse, part of that shape is pre-defined by the line length; but the way that the speech cadence plays in the line affects it as well. In non-metrical verse, of course, the cadence tends to be more subtle without the bones of meter to direct it.

As this is "Mastery", here's an example of a non-met poem I think has good lines:

Way of the Water Hyacinth,
by Zawgee

Bobbing on the breeze-blown waves,
Bowing to the tide,
Hyacinth rises and falls.

Falling, but not felled
By flotsam, twigs, leaves,
She ducks, bobs, and weaves.

Ducks, ducks by the score!
Jolting, quacking and more
She spins through.

Spinning, swamped, slimed, sunk:
She rises, resolute,
Still crowned with petals.


Each line places a complete image in my mind's eye (or ear); although some enjambed lines also build on the images of the lines before.

Each line has a phrase, a cadenced shape. I don't seem to have the vocabulary to describe it, but I can feel it. For instance, the lines in S1 are longer and stretchier than the central four lines of the poem, which are choppier - as befits the imagery in each case.

[This message has been edited by VictoriaGaile (edited June 11, 2005).]

[Henry Quince]

Victoria, that’s a good example, and the phrase “cadenced shape” is germane. I think if you use a line break that disrupts or subverts the cadences of the language, you’d better have a good payoff for doing it.

Mary’s Moore’s Generation Gap thread in TDE has provoked a difference of view that might usefully be explored here. Here are the relevant lines in the original version:

I’m barely past my prime. There’s been some change,
it’s true, but in dim light my wrinkles don’t
offend and, with an effort, I can hold
my back erect so young observers won’t
surrender seats to me for fear I’ll fold.

I commented as follows: “I dislike enjambments that break a verb from its auxiliary, as you’ve done here with “don’t/offend” and “won’t/surrender”, I think because they throw too heavy a stress on the auxiliary, contra the normal speech rhythm. I would reserve this trick of suspending the verb to the beginning of the next line for the rare occasions when there is a good reason to do so.”

Mary accepted the point and revised the lines as follows:

I’m barely past my prime. There’s been some change,
it’s true, but in dim light my wrinkles fade
and, with determination, I can hold
my back erect. The young don’t offer aid;
don’t proffer seats to me for fear I’ll fold.


Mark Allinson then made this comment:

Well, I think this poem has now lost a lot of its charm. The line breaks on "don't" and "won't" were working well, I thought. For instance:

but in dim light my wrinkles don’t

carries double implications - as if the speaker is making an apostrophe to her wrinkles - "now surely, especially here in dim light, my wrinkles, don't ... you dare appear?"
And then the cognitive snap at the start of the next line reins it back to the narrative. The same effect with

my back erect so young observers won’t

which hangs in the air with a range of possible outcomes: so young observers won't - won't what? And then we find out. I like it when poems offer potential meanings with line endings like this. To me this is good line-breaking.

But it all comes down to taste. I prefer poems which increase and complicate meaning, rather than reduce it something neat, clear and rational.

As I’ve said there, I don’t see this as a matter of wanting everything “neat, clear and rational” but more of consonance — of form and content being (usually) matched rather than at cross-purposes.

Don’t we (usually) need a better reason than keeping the reader in suspense (assuming these breaks even work like that) to break a phrase that would normally form a rhetorical unit in speech, and to mar its cadencing in the process? To my mind there needs to be a corresponding dislocation in the sense, or something else, to justify it.

Your idea, Mark — that the “don’t” in the line-end and rhyme position, with the extra weight it’s given there, creates tension by leaving various possible continuations open — seems a bit far-fetched in this instance; I can’t see it as a likely enough benefit to offset the violence done to the flow of the lines. Surely the same “suspension” idea could be used to justify just about any line break, including those in my example which you agreed were bad.

Have another look at that Kinsella excerpt, above. Oliver has said, cynically, that this is par for the course now — still, we were trying to discuss what we think is good or bad. One could put forward a defence of these breaks:

by comparison — though a couple
of old timers couldn’t take their

eyes off it. Bloody voyeurs


along “suspense” lines. First, questions raised by a couple hang in the air (Is it a couple in the sense of a conjugal pair, or a couple of something, and if so what?). Then, the old timers couldn’t take their... what?
As I say, one could argue suspense or drawing the reader on to the next line. But does this really create an irresistible forward momentum? And even if it does in a couple of instances, surely it’s a trick that soon loses its effectiveness if done indiscriminately over and over. I reiterate Clive’s point on foreground and background. And my own suspicion is that if a poet does this repeatedly with forward momentum as a rationale, the underlying problem is a lack of attention to the content itself, or a lack of confidence in it.



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 19, 2005).]

[Mark Allinson]

Henry,

I can see absolutely no comparison at all between the random and meaningless line-breaks in the Kinsella and those in Mary's poem. In Mary's poem there is meaning behind the emphasis on the "won't" and the "don't", even apart from the semantic tension they create. The original emphasis on these two words, produced by their rhyme positions, in a poem about aging, is also important, underlining the resistance of the speaker to the process.

I suppose it depends on whether you like an increase in the meaning potential or would rather keep it univocal, which is what I meant by "neat and rational" - univocal. Mary's poem is now very clear metered prose, but I miss the poetry it lost in changing the line-breaks.

------------------
Mark Allinson

[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited June 19, 2005).]