Controlling the Pace of a Poem
Enjambment, Punctuation and Whitespace
Ferrick Gray
Poetically Speaking
Volume 3, Issue 2 (January 23)
Prefatory Comments
The enjoyment and beauty of a poem are greatly enhanced when the poem is read aloud. If the poet wishes their poem to be read in a particular manner, then they must organize and structure their poem appropriately. The reader will then be guided expectantly. Many poets believe that simply breaking a verse will suffice. Generally, these breaks often come across as random and do nothing to effectively control the pace, and the reader is left to their own devices for interpretation. The fact is that one needs a very discerning ear to know where and when to break a verse. In this essay I will discuss three main techniques are used to control the pace of a poem. These are enjambment, punctuation, and whitespace.
Enjambment
What Enjambment Is
The word enjambment originates from the French and means to stride over, or go beyond. Enjambment is a much-used poetic technique where a phrase, clause, or sentence continues across what would normally be a metrical pause, and continues into the next verse without any terminal punctuation such as a comma or period. In other words, the end of one verse is being made syntactically continuous with the beginning of the next.
What Enjambment Is Not
Some verses may continue into the next verse. However, the verse may be end-stopped with a comma or some other punctuation apart from the period. This is not enjambment even though the thought may continue. What has occurred here is that there are two distinct parts to the single thought. There is no syntactical continuation between the verses, only with regards to punctuation. There is a natural pause created due to the punctuation. One may be tempted to call this quasi-enjambment. That is, it looks like it, but it is not. If enjambment is desired, the poet must consider if the punctuation is necessary, or if the verses can be rewritten.
What Does Enjambment Do?
Enjambment will generally speed up the pace of the poem because the thought cannot be contained in one verse, and so is not complete. In this case, the reader immediately continues to the next verse for completion. The result is that the normal metrical pause is obscured or overridden. It will also allow the imitation of a more natural conversational flow with the building of verse-paragraphs. Hence, enjambment can be a very important technique to bind verses, which is not possible when a series of single, standalone verses are used.
There are instances where the enjambment may continue for more than two verses. Albeit acceptable, care must be taken not to employ this technique for extended periods. As with any technique, if overused, the effect will be to weaken the metrical effect of the poem, and as such, it will become more prose-like. The poet also needs to pay due attention to the sentence structure and sense units.
Punctuation
What Does Punctuation Do?
Punctuation is an important tool to control rhythm, pace, and meaning, and has a much greater impact when the poem is being read aloud. The most commonly seen punctuation in poetry is the comma, period, and dash. Others, such as exclamation and question marks, shape the meaning and/or tone of verses. Ellipses imply unfinished or trailing thoughts.
Formal poetry tends to utilize punctuation more accurately, whereas the more modern forms tend to use it as a mere decoration and do not have any grammatical significance.
Some poets do not use punctuation at all. However, there is great skill required to be successful in using no punctuation. Most modern vers libre poets do not possess this skill. On some occasions, the lack of punctuation may enable or encourage ambiguity in the reading, but again, it is only a skillful poet who can create this possibility.
Obviously, the different symbols have different uses, although some poets can be haphazard with their use of punctuation. The added difficulty is that the interpretation of punctuation is dependent on the reader, and as a result simply acts as a guide to reading.
The period, exclamation, and question marks are roughly the same in duration. The comma is the shortest pause, followed by the semicolon and colon. Although flexible and powerful, the use of the dash should be considered carefully.
The most commonly used dash is the em dash (—). This dash indicates a strong pause when leading into another verse, but there are many times when it is used at the end of a verse; it has no meaning whatsoever and is merely a decoration. However, it may be used for linking or to represent parentheses. This is a common technique when the enclosed phrase or clause acts more as an aside to the actual thought, and this can be very effective.
Whitespace
What Is Whitespace?
Whitespace is exactly what the word implies. Whitespace consists of any space between words of at least two normal character spaces, or at least one blank line between verses, thus producing a greater spacing between words or verses.
Whitespace can be used to great effect and will easily replace the use of some standard punctuation, such as the comma, semicolon, colon, and dash. Naturally, not all styles of poetry are appropriate for the use of whitespace. As we may surmise, there are few, if any, formal styles where excessive whitespace can be successfully employed. (Excessive meaning more than the normal word or verse spacing.)
What Can Whitespace Do?
There are advantages to whitespace, and these can make the poem obviously visually appealing. The whitespace may also add or bring attention to certain words. For example:
which illustrates the meaning of the word. The increased spacing between words creates a more relaxed or slower pace without the need for punctuation. For example:
In this line from Eliot’s The Waste Land (III: The Fire Sermon), which appears simple enough, the separation of the repeated words can create a feeling of despair, perhaps contemplation as the flames devour their prey. Something of which we are incapable of sayings lays between the words. (Is it sorrow?) Thus, spaces allow the opportunity for both reader and listener to give their meaning to the spaces.
Concluding Comments
Enjambment, punctuation, and whitespace are not the only factors used to control the pace of a poem. Pauses are very important, and in some instances, they are not always easily controlled in verse. Pauses can be suspensory, compensatory, metrical, sense, or caesural. (Pause types will be discussed in another essay.) It depends on what the poet has to say and how they wish to convey their thoughts. However, the effect of any technique will be to override, or at least obscure, the metrical pause at the end of a verse, or add a pause of some description mid-verse. The effect can be harsh or not so obvious, depending on what the poet requires. The use of enjambment and whitespace, in general, is not easily misinterpreted, unlike punctuation.