Poetry Primer: Enjambment (and also End-stops)
Poetry Primer is a weekly web series hosted by yours truly, u/actualnameisLana.
Each week I’ll be selecting a particular tool of the trade, and exploring how it’s used, what it’s used for, and how it might be applied to your own poetry. Then, I’ll be selecting a few poems from you, yes, the OCPoetry community to demonstrate those tools in action. So are you ready, poets? Here we go!
This week's installment goes over enjambment (and also end-stops).
#I. What is Enjambment?
Enjambment is a tool you're probably already using in your poetry and you may not even realize it. Stated simply, it's when the sentence or thought continues past the end of the poetic line and flows over into the next one. The opposite of an enjambed line is an end-stopped line.
#II. Examples of Enjambment
Let's look at some examples of both enjambment and its opposite, end-stopped poetry.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and asleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”
~from ”Endymion” by John Keats
Notice how the sentence “It will never pass into nothing but still will keep a bower quiet for us” is split up across several lines. This is enjambment at its best.
“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.”
~from ”The Waste Land” by T.S.Eliot
Here, Eliot places gerund verbs at the end of nearly every single line, which carry the reader forward into the next line for context and to complete the thought. In this way, Eliot keeps his reader constantly surprised as we hurtle headlong through his poem.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date
~from ”Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare
Here, our man Will shakes things up a bit (haha see what I did there?) by completing each line of this Sonnet with an end-stop. This, by contrast, slows his reader down, forcing us to post attention to each and every word of each and every line.
#III. The Importance of Enjambment
Enjambment and end-stops are tools a list uses primarily to control the pace of the reader as they progress through the poem. Over the years, they've also been put to many creative uses beyond this function, but the primary reason to choose one or the other remains the same. Want your reader to speed up and feel hurried through the words you're throwing at them? Use enjambment. Want your reader to slow down and have time to really post attention to every detail? Use end-stops. It seems too simple to actually work, but try it sometime, I guarantee results!
#IV. Enjambment (and End-stops) in OCPoetry
Since these are opposites, I could literally pick any line from any poem and use it as an example of one of the two. So rather than doing that, I'm going to link two examples that I think exemplify the use of these two opposite devices within their own individual contexts. I highly encourage each of you to go click around on OCPoetry today and see if you agree with my assessment.
Black denim stretched across the knee of a summer sky.
Worn patches are clouds, the moon a bleach stain,
all held by twinkling rivets and seams of stars.
This in my opinion is one of the best uses of end-stops this subreddit has enjoyed in the just week. The mood of the piece is laid-back, lackadaisical, unhurried, and peaceful. The end-stops here encourage us to take time within this piece, meander at our own pace through its topography, and appreciate all the little details this author has left for us to find. It's just beautiful.
How the saplings
So newly sprung
Stretch up their leaves
And forget their roots.
~”Refugees” by u/Sora1499
And this, by contrast, is an almost textbook example of how to use enjambment to propel your reader quickly through a poem. The subtext in this piece is about feeling hurried, how quickly time goes by, and how easy it is to blink and miss the important stuff. By removing all end-stops, and using enjambment at the end of every line-break, the author is able to mimic that sense of getting to the end before you feel like you even started, in the very actions of their readers. This is just superb poetic design.
Well done to both OCpoets!
Have you noticed enjambment or the lack it used creatively in an OCpoem recently? Have you written a poem using enjambment or end-stops that you'd like to share here? Did I miss your favorite example of enjambment or end-stops in a poem? Send in your examples and tell us how they work and what they make you feel!
Until next week, I'm aniLana and you're not. Signing off for now. See you on the next one, OCPoets!
Posted Jun 22, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC · edited