Lessons on the Line - Enjambment

 

We are discussing line structure and creating affect in the line for the reader. 

Enjambment gives the affect of forced intimacy or running with the line (getting carried away in thought).  These are good affects for conveying a sentiment or theme in the poem, particularly when using enjambment in a few different lines in a poem.  Let's compare and contrast some of the characteristics of enjambment with regular "end-stopped" lines. 

What are the benefits of using enjambment? What are the benefits of using "end-stop" lines?

Considerations about punctuation when using enjambment.

To create a dramatic and engaging contrast in your lines, you may want to use caesura and enjambment in tandem. 

You may also consider how intervals and breaks work in a line. How intervals and breaks work to create pauses that punctuation may not signal? 

Lucille Clifton states that the space in the line is the space for the reader to rest and insert their thoughts into the work. 

Fred Moten in his book In the Break finds that interval, break and silence, in the line is a space where multiple things are happening at once like the broken claims to connection - suturing seemingly divergent ruptures, an imaginative kind of restoration (identity). He also says the "temporal-spacial discontinuity as a generative break , one wherein action becomes possible [see Clifton above]. The break demands a fundamental reorganization... the free mode of organization that moves within and points to and whose logical structure it shares (99)

What are the benefits of using enjambment in the piece that you are reworking in this lesson? What affects can be achieved?  Where would be the best places to attempt enjambment in this poem?