Enhance your poems’ musicality, tension, and meaning with smarter line breaks.
Baffled by line breaks? In this hands-on class, we’ll explore how line breaks create and affect musicality and tension in a poem. We’ll also discuss how line length affects pace and rhythm, and how good line breaks add to your poem’s energy and meaning. Through in-class exercises and discussion, you’ll not only start to notice your own habits with the line, but also discover new options of where to break the line—and why. Bring a copy of a free verse poem (at least 14 lines,1400 words) you wrote that you feel could benefit from more intentional line breaks.
Live video conference: This workshop will be held via our online video conferencing platform, Zoom. You can view brief tutorials on using the platform here. On the start date or the day before, participants will receive an email with login info (please check your spam if you don’t see it).
In this workshop you’ll learn:
- What your default habits are for breaking lines
- New ways to think about the line, and intentionally break the line
- How weak line breaks weaken a poem
- How strong line breaks can enhance a poem’s meaning
- Some exercises to improve your line breaks your poem-in-progress
Time requirements
- No advance reading is required.
Materials
- Poems will be shared via Screen Share
Who should take this workshop?
- This workshop is for poets of all levels who what to better understand line breaks and the many effects strong/ intentional line breaks can have on their poems.
If you need an accommodation for this workshop, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.
