Trevor Joyce asked: "So: why bother breaking lines? What can verse do that
prose can't? I have my
own notions, but I'd be interested to know what others think...."
In poetry the silence, scored by lineation and stanzaic breaks, is active;
it is where meaning is released. It's not enough to break up text with a
ragged right margin; this can produce the simulacrum of a poem while failing
to enact the imaginal that animates silence. When lineation only establishes
rhythm, which pivots upon silence as much as it does upon a stressed
syllable, the text lacks the integrity of either fine prose or realized
poetry. Lineation is the syntax of active silence.
David Howard
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