Jan 29 Assignment

"The image is the poet's pigment. The image is not an idea. It is a radiant node or cluster, a vortex through which and into which ideas are constantly rushing. It is as true for painting and sculpture as it is for poetry."

To be honest, at first when I am figuring out where to put line breaks in my poem, I do it by number. I like having stanzas that are all the same amount of lines, or at least have a similar amount. I think this is because I'm someone who likes symmetry and organization. So sometimes I will plan the amount of lines I want in each stanza, and then plan out what I want to happen in each stanza. To me, each stanza is a complete thought. It's almost like writing a paragraph, only with poetry you can take the idea that you would write a paragraph about and shorten it into a succinct thought.

I also find that it's interesting to use line breaks to keep a reader in suspense. Instead of finishing the thought completely, the stanza ends with a "cliffhanger" that leads into the next stanza. Sometimes I will even leave the sentence unfinished, and then continue it on the next stanza. This is also why I tend not to use a period in the last lines of the stanzas until I get to the last stanza. Then, in the last line of the entire poem, I use a period, and the thought is completed.

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