Enjambment+--+Michelle

Line breaks in a poem bring readers to look more closely at a certain part of the stanza or line. There’s obviously always an emphasis on one word over the other. Depending on how the lines are set up, the sound, structure, and meaning of a poem all change.

Let’s take Linda Pastan’s “Erosion” for example. Her poem is written out in complete sentences. However, each sentence doesn’t create each line, and each paragraph does not create each stanza. The overall rhythm of “Erosion” is quite slow—when reading it out loud, you pause constantly and imagine every detail. It feels as if Pastan purposely separated the sentences into lines of just two or three words in some parts so that readers take their time understanding her writing. There is no need to read a poem quickly; all it does is toss away the small details. This poem’s rhythm is basically created by Paston’s splitting of sentences.

The constant line breaks form the tone of the poem itself. If a reader was to read the poem just as sentences, and not a poem, there would be so many details that they miss because they are minor parts to the sentence. Reading it simply as a cluster of sentences, the audience is drawn to the big idea only. Nevertheless, by dividing the sentences so that there isn’t more than one subject or noun that is focused at a time, the tone is much deeper. Reading a poem out loud really brings out the author’s intended tone, both literally and figuratively. The line breaks are a way to magnify one point of a point, the point the author wants her readers to notice.

What, then, is the main theme of this poem? Although it is difficult to figure out a definite single theme of “Erosion,” the audience is able to make predictions based on certain descriptions throughout the poem. Some are more noticeable because of the specific structure of the essay where each line doesn’t focus on more than one idea. Therefore, readers automatically become simple readers, simple thinkers. They rely on the descriptive words alone. For instance, one may think that the theme is nature because of the numerous references Linda Pastan makes to nature in the poem. However, another may think that theme is people and relationships because of the metaphoric meaning behind some of the words described. It is basically one’s interpretation of Pastan’s picture or story. All this is altered according to how the poem is laid out—the visual.

Linda Pastan, as well as many other poets, uses line breaks wisely to bring out whatever she pictured while she wrote this poem to her audience, to make sure that readers understand the exact image she had in mind as she wrote “Erosion.” Everyone in the world has a separate mind. It is the author’s duty to somehow bring these different minds together and lead the audience to all see the same picture—her picture. Separation of lines and stanzas made Pastan’s poem more meaningful and more peaceful than it would have been if the sentences were read in a normal paragraph. The impact of line breaks are great if used properly. The right intentions and the right ways of breaking lines are most likely to bring out the best of one’s work.