All about punctuation in poetry: last week the Nardvark was
all confused about rhythm and metre, and Nerdvark stopped playing WOW long
enough to sort him out. Now,
surprisingly, Nardvark is confused again.
Seems he copied and pasted an excellent essay about a poem, but that
wasn’t good enough for his teacher, even though it had awesome literary terms
in it like ‘enjambment’ and ‘caesura.’
Nerdvark is pretty dang cranky because he was in the middle
of building the most awesome life-sized King-Kong replica in Mine Craft and now
he has to help that ninny Nard with his homework AGAIN, but whatevz.
So it seems punctuation can either enhance the rhythm or
disrupt it.
End-stopped line: this refers to the placing of a
punctuation mark at the end of a line of poetry. The effect – causing the reader to pause briefly
before reading the next line. It is generally
consistent with the rhythm.
For example, the first two lines from Roald Dahl’s excellent
iambic tetrameter poem, “Mike Teevee...”
The most important thing
we've learned, (end-stopped)
So far as children are concerned, (end-stopped)
So far as children are concerned, (end-stopped)
Caesura: this refers to the placing of a punctuation mark in
the middle of a line of poetry. The
effect – causing the reader to pause briefly in the middle of the line, which
breaks up the rhythm and emphasises the word or phrase before and/or after the
caesura.
There are a few examples in the next lines of “Mike
Teevee...”
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let (caesura)
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install (caesura)
The idiotic thing at all.
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install (caesura)
The idiotic thing at all.
Enjambment: this refers to
the LACK of punctuation marks at the end of a line of
poetry. The effect -- causing the reader to flow into the next line without
pausing. This also breaks up the rhythm and allows the poem to read
more like normal speech than a song or poem. It can give the effect
of an internal monologue, dialogue, or informal prose, and is often used in
free verse (non-rhyming, non-rhythmic) poetry.
There are some examples in the next few lines from
“Mike Teevee...”
In almost every house
we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw (enjambment)
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit (enjambment)
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk (enjambment)
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw (enjambment)
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit (enjambment)
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk (enjambment)
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
To read the rest of “Mike
Teevee...” please click here: Roald Dahl
is awesome! And as you read, see if you can spot more examples
of end-stopped lines, caesura, and enjambment.
Thanks for reading, and if you find my blog
helpful, please check out my website: www.kiborrowman.net.
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