I’ve been studying poetry recently, and have especially enjoyed Mary Oliver’s thoughts on enjambment, the decision of where and when to end a line, and the corresponding effects that choice has on the reader.
Consider the following:
1
2
3
4
We all sit around silently asking who can
cer will come for first. Will
thinks it will be him. No
one looks my way.
“Can” to cancer tricks the reader into thinking a question will follow, a matter of ability. Will attempts the same trick (but cheaper and far too soon), from a question to a name. And really doing it a third time with No to No one is almost putting too much of a hat on the trick, a fake answer that the reader (at this point) has no reason to believe!
There’s a reason she’s the poet and I just a student.