"They arrange their thoughts in lines without much sense of why they are doing so, beyond the hope that if what they write 'looks' like a poem, it will mysteriously become one."
"You'll need to get a feel for the line, for what it does when it is very short, very long, and every place in between; you'll need to be able to test its weight and heft according to the rhythms of the language you've strung along it; and you'll want to use it to create tension or relaxation, to emphasize words, to speed up or slow down your reader's eye, to fulfill or thwart expectations."
"...it's especially important to pay attention to the tools we do have, to become aware of the sounds of language and begin to work with them - both in your choice of words, and how you organize those words into lines that are meaningful - not only in what they say, but how they say it."
"The rhythms of certain lines also swerve to intensify the contrasts in the poem."
"We're made uncomfortable when words that usually go together are suddenly severed from each other, like adjectives and nouns ... articles and nouns ... when even verbs are split up."
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