Category: Blog

 

cool morning–the sun
shines on what remains of her
tasty crocuses

I’m returning later in the day to adjust the line breaks. I forced them into 5-7-5 here, but the more natural breaks of this version feel smoother to me:

cool morning–
the sun shines on what remains
of her tasty crocuses

My friend and poet, Joann Early Macken, on reading my line break worries, suggested this:

cool morning–the sun
shines on what remains
of her tasty crocuses

Her revision speaks to me, too. JoAnn also sent me this reminder about line breaks, from Mary Oliver’s Poetry Handbook:

“I cannot say too many times how powerful the techniques of line length and line breaks are. You cannot swing the lines around, or fling strong-sounding words, or scatter soft ones, to no purpose. A reader beginning a poem is like someone stepping into a rowboat with a stranger at the oars; the first few draws on the long oars through the deep water tell a lot–is one safe, or is one apt soon to be drowned? A poem is that real a journey.”

Which version would convince you that I could get you safely to the shore?