zodiac1 Feb 2004

Woah there. Well, I'm with darkangel on the general annoyingness of arbitrary linebreaks, but I firmly believe that for a poem to be regarded as such (ie, as a poem,) it has got to a) look like one, and b) not scare people with what looks like a lot of unpunctuated long lines. So at the very least I would insert extra breaks after 'image', 'Hall', and so on. Make it look like stanzas, like something manageable. For another thing, the ends of lines are not anywhere regarded as periods or commas; you should insert these where needed. And third (ie, most daring,) you might consider some arbitrary linebreaks. You see, I'm sure, how most of the lines end cleanly at the ends of thoughts or clauses? That doesn't have to be. I don't know how lines should be broken up (I only do it by rhyme,) but I've heard it has something to do with making the fragments of phrases meaningful (sometimes) as smaller phrases. That's half. The other half, I would imagine, is just making it look striking and poetic. Again, I have no idea how. In fact, you can ignore this whole last part if you choose. But definitely make stanzas. People like stanzas.