Day Six of Poetry Week: Enjambment and End Stops

You’ve probably used enjambment and end stops in all of your own poetry; perhaps without even knowing it. Both enjambment and end stops are fundamental elements of poetry. Each line in a piece of poetry can usually be classified as either.

Definitions:

1.      Enjambment: the continuation of a sentence form one line or couplet into the next.

2.      End stop: a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse (such as a period, colon, semi-colon, comma, etc.)

NOTE: If you punctuate your poetry it is easier to identify each line as either enjambment or end stop.

*****Examples*****

Enjambment: All lines are examples of enjambment unless otherwise stated.

Petals

By: Aubrie Anne (2008)

My daughter’s reflection in the mirror

Contradicts everything about me. (End stop)

Her young and sturdy shoulders

Are not yet burdened by the weight of the world; (End stop)

Whereas I cripple at the sight of the cooled morning air. (End stop)

Her gleaming hair reflects rays of sunshine

While mine, limped curls that absorb the dry air and crinkle at its roots. (End stop)

My lines are deep and hallow

As hers become smoothed and defined. (End stop)

She’s in a prime I surpassed years ago

While I’m a barren wasteland that has been emptied

Month by month, no longer able to create. (End stop)

And her, supple and full, able to give way to pleasure

Without a sense of uselessness. (End stop)

She’s a sweet rose that only need be picked. (End stop)

And I, whose petals have already been plucked one by one

And left to rot on the floor. (End stop)

Why is it, she is of my own making

And yet she’s taken a place I once held so dear; (End stop)

One of youth and adventure. (End stop)

I’ve been replaced. (End stop)

End stop: All lines are examples of end stop.

The Raisin and the Rose

By: Aubrie Anne (2008)

She brushes my locks out every night.

Long tresses are pulled and shined.

Her own withered curls fall out of place,

A mane overtaken by the color of salt.

My posture young, weightless and steady,

Her own hunched, crippled by stress.

Why is it we are moving away from each other?

Both growing, but one taller and the other older.

I seek the life outside, unfamiliar experiences at my fingertips.

She finds solace inside, safety in common comforts.

As I am ready to emerge, choosing a life, a profession, a lover,

She decides scrambled or boiled, wash or dry, Wal-Mart or K-Mart.

She’s shrivels, like a raisin forgotten on the vine.

And I, a rose, spotted from a distance, ready to be picked.

She’s a Queen, not quite jealous of her daughter’s youth and beauty,

But never forgetting, never overlooking,

That someday this girl will take the throne.

She will be replaced.

*****Questions*****

Did you know about enjambment or end stops before now?

If so, where did you learn about them?

What do you use more: enjambment or end stops?