line into lie

A poet who changes a word to make a rhyme turns the line into a lie.

feature not flaw

A line that doesn’t make sense in a poem is a feature not a flaw. It shakes the reader from the rote act of reading.

poetics in four words

Gerard Manley Hopkins in “Pied Beauty” gave the best statement of a poetics: “All things counter, original, spare, strange...”

almost a sentence

The closer a line of poetry is to a sentence, the more power it has.

rope-ladder

To read a good poem is like climbing down a rope-ladder, line by line never sure there is another length below you that can hold you, and not sure it reaches all the way to the ground.

inferred from life

A good line of poetry is an inference from experience.

loose thread

Like a loose thread in a beautiful garment, an odd unwound line can alter and awaken one’s reading of the poem.

on two wheels

Should one hesitate at the end of the line or make the turn on two wheels.

slash and burn

I think the best poets get more satisfaction from striking whole lines and stanzas than from the composition of same.

fall out

I don’t fall in line with 5-7-5, but I won’t resist a haiku that happens to fall out into that pattern.

line strikes

Sometimes a line of poetry strikes inside, hard, deep—down into that well we might as well call the soul.

starting block

Poets often concern themselves with the end words of their lines. The first word in the line should be seen as the runner in the starting block, poised to take that first thrusting step.

lost lines

The poem was forgetting itself line by line.

edge of the void

…often poetic forms, even non-rhyming ones, are about end words. I don’t like to think of end words as the point of the line—the break is not more central to the line than the rest of the unit—but there is, yes, something significant about those ultimate words. They need a little more courage, hanging out right at the edge of the void.

—Elisa Gabbert, “Cross-talk,” The New York Times Book Review, Oct. 15, 2023

know a poem

In phrases, images, rhythms, style,...you can know a poem without having memorized a single line.

gull line

You can ask for no better line than a gull cutting across the horizon near dusk.

waste no word

 Poet, waste no word or thus lessen the thrust of the line.

load-bearing line

A line must bear the weight of the one or many above it.

go for a walk

Paul Klee’s suggestion to ‘go for a walk with a line’, applies to poetry as well.

tethered to existence

One believes the poem came from nowhere, while each line could be traced back to life.