Coaxing Poems 6: Give it Space

 

Greetings to you dear and funny Poetry Friends! Welcome to the sixth of ten poetry visits here at The Poem Farm. In each of these short videos, I will share a small something about poetry, and you will always be able to find the poem(s) I read below the video. If you wish, you may watch the earlier videos linked below:

COAXING POEMS VISITS:

Visit 1: We Are Libraries

Visit 2: Eat the World

Visit 3: Make & Break a Pattern

Visit 4: Abacadabra!

Visit 5: Tell Us a Story

Please make yourself comfy for Visit 6: Give it Space.

Students - Line breaks and stanzas create the space in our poems. They are the air our poems need to breathe. See, to not make space inside of a poem is to stuff the poem into an airless jar, and we do not want our poems to live inside of airless jars. 

Pinecone Treasures

Photo by Amy LV

You may have noticed that I played even more with the line breaks - and the words - of this poem between recording the video and typing it up here. I decided to break this poem into two stanzas...one about the pinecones without the boy and one about the boy and his pinecone plans.

Below you can see some of my drafting for this poem. Messy, isn't it? Real work often is, so please do not worry about neatnes in your first drafts. Allow the messy thinking part of writing to be part of your work.

Now, notice the slashes. Those idicate where I chose to break my lines. If you ever write a poem that looks like a paragraph, or if you do not like the line breaks you first choose, know that you can change them. Simply draw slash marks to show where you will move to new lines in your recopy/typing of the work. 

Some Messy Pinecone Drafting

Photo by Amy LV

Here again, as in the video, you can see thre ways I considered breaking up that first sentence of the poem. You may have made choices than I did with these words, and this is one part of what makes writing interesting: we each do it our own way based on who we are.

A Few Line Break Possibilities

Photo by Amy LV

Consider breaking a line (going to a new line) in your poem if:

• You wish for your readers to pause for a moment
• You wrote line you wish to repeat exactly the same way
• A new voice is speaking
• You want the words and motion of your poem to match each other
• One line - or word - is very important, deserving of its own line

If you wish for a greater pause or to show a more important change or shift as I did in today's poem, you might move to to a new stanza to help your readers feel this change as they read.

The space in a poem matters. As you write a poem, say this to yourself: Give it space.

Margaret is hosting this week's Poetry Friday over at Reflections on the Teche with two poems that span the human experience from love to grief. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you - and your poems - the healthy beauty of space in the week ahead.

xo,

Amy

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