Poets never think about poetry terms, certainly not when they\u2019re writing a poem. I\u2019ve never deliberately used enjambment, but on checking my poems I discover that I use it quite often, quite naturally.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a word for one of poetry\u2019s dance steps. It\u2019s the nano-second pause at the end of one line, or the two nano-seconds at the end of a stanza, where the meaning and the sentence run on, leaping the gap to land at the start of the next line, or the next stanza. They pause, and continue, the toe-to-heel step of a dancer who reaches the edge of the space, and turns. It\u2019s the nose of the goldfish nudging the glass on its journey round the tank.<\/p>\n
Prose is made of sentences, poetry is made of lines. The pattern a poem makes on the page is musical notation, or choreography. Enjambment stops the sentence in its stride, forcing it to dance to poetry\u2019s tune. Tension lies in the connection of music and meaning. It adds suspense, ambiguity, drama.<\/p>\n
\u2018Legend\u2019 is a true story. It unfolds in sentences that run over the ends of the lines. Then, at the moment of truth at the end of stanza 4, there\u2019s nothing for it but to leap a stanza gap, just as I remember leaping the crack in the ice to pull my sister out of the lake.<\/p>\n
By the way, it\u2019s the same lake as the one in \u2018Cold Knap Lake\u2019.<\/p>\n
Legend<\/p>\n
The rooms were mirrors
\nfor that luminous face,
\nthe morning windows ferned
\nwith cold. Outside
\na level world of snow.<\/p>\n
Voiceless birds in the trees
\nlike notes in the books
\nin the piano stool.
\nShe let us suck top-of-the-milk
\nburst from the bottles like corks.<\/p>\n
Then wrapped shapeless
\nwe stumped to the park
\nbetween the parapets of snow
\nin the wake of the shovellers,
\ncardboard rammed in the tines of garden forks.<\/p>\n
The lake was an empty rink
\nand I stepped out,
\npushing my sister first
\nonto its creaking floor.
\nWhen I brought her home,<\/p>\n
shivering, wailing, soaked,
\nthey thought me a hero.
\nBut I still wake at night,
\nto hear the Snow Queen\u2019s knuckles crack,
\nblack water running fingers through the ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Poets never think about poetry terms, certainly not when they\u2019re writing a poem. I\u2019ve never deliberately used enjambment, but on checking my poems I discover that I use it quite often, quite naturally. It\u2019s a word for one of poetry\u2019s dance steps. It\u2019s the nano-second pause at the end of one line, or the two… Continue reading Enjambment<\/span>