Tips for Breaking Stanzas & Lines in Poetry Mrs.

Lockwood
Work Cited
Hood, Dave. "Writing Free Verse Poetry: Stanza, Line Break, Style." Web log post. Find Your Creative Muse. N.p., 10 Apr. 2013.
Web. 07 Aug. 2014.

NAME: ______________________________________
We looked at Old Lester Darby as both prose and once we added line breaks. We then discussed the
poets selection of line breaks and how the stanzas were arranged. NOW, you will use the same process
and decide how to arrange YOUR poem.
STANZAS
What is a stanza? It is a group of lines in a poem, separated by white space. Stanzas are the body of a poem.
They follow the title. The stanza in a poem is like a paragraph in prose. Sometimes a stanza is short, consisting
of only a line. Other times, a stanza is long, making up the entire poem.
How do you know when to create a new stanza? The stanza in poetry is a device for organizing related ideas.
A new stanza can do one or more of the following:
Signal a change in time, place, perspective, and so forth.
Tell the reader to stop and ponder by taking a pause.
Influence the momentum, or the flow, of a poem.
Emphasize a change in direction.
Modern or contemporary free verse poems require no particular stanza length and no particular rhyme scheme.
A free verse poem can have one of three types of stanzas:
A single stanza
Several stanzas with the same number of lines
Several stanzas, each with a different number of lines
LINE BREAKS
In free verse poetry, the poet doesnt have to comply with any rules. The poet can break a line for any number
of reasons. However, here are the most popular reasons why a poet breaks a line to begin a new line:
To emphasize a word or phrase at the end of a line
To signal a pause to the reader
To speed up or slow down the pace
To create a sense of forward motion
To show change of thought
To create an interruption
To comply with the rules of grammar
To create a metrical, syllabic, or rhyming pattern


Suppose you wanted to write a short poem about spring, you could write:
Sunshine, blooming tulips, green grass, a warm breeze
A leisure ride on a bike-
These are the ingredients of a favorite spring day.
Tips for Breaking Stanzas & Lines in Poetry Mrs. Lockwood
Work Cited
Hood, Dave. "Writing Free Verse Poetry: Stanza, Line Break, Style." Web log post. Find Your Creative Muse. N.p., 10 Apr. 2013.
Web. 07 Aug. 2014.
Or you could write:
Sunshine
Blooming tulips
Green grass
a warm breeze
a leisure ride on a bike
These are the ingredients
of a favorite spring day.

Here are a few popular ways in which you can create a line break:
1. Use white space on a line, between lines, between stanzas.
2. Indent a line of a poem with white space.
3. Use an end stop, such as a period, question mark or exclamation point.
4. Use punctuation to signify a short pause (comma or semi-colon) or a long pause (colon or dash).
5. Break a line at the end of a phrase or sentence.
6. Use a line break to emphasize words or ideas at the end of a line.
7. Line breaks can be used to follow a pattern.