Selections from James Longenbach’s The Art of The Poetic Line

“We might be tempted to say that the line “breaks” at such a moment, but the line merely ends—it doesn’t break. Rather than thinking about what often gets called “line breaks,” it’s more helpful to think about “line endings”: the syntax may or may not break at the point where the line ends.”

“It’s a commonplace to talk about the speaker of any poem, but …