crosscut saw

The right margin is a serrated edge, and this poem is going saw you in half.

rough edge

The right margin of line endings competing with the deckle edge of the page.

uneven ends

The ragged right edge of the poem is reminder of our art’s imperfection.

city of words

Poetry is a city of words, a complex heterogeneity that functions both as its parts and as a whole. It’s full of systems—metaphoric, symbolic, sonic—analogous to the sewage, electrical, and transportation systems that animate a city. You look at a jagged skyline, and see the ragged right margin; you read through the quick shifts of much contemporary poetry, and think of a busy intersection in which your view is cut off by a bus one moment, then opened up the next, and then filled with a crowd crossing the street the next.

—Cole Swenson, "Poetry City," Identity Theory, (Oct. 26, 2004, identitytheory.com)

by rights justify

A prose poem justifies itself by resorting to the right margin.

long and lost

Those long lines ramble forward, forgetful or lost in thought, bumping their heads on the right margin and falling over.

prose poem

Prose poem: A poem comfortable with the right margin.