Poetry Technique: Enjambment

More good news — another poem published, this one in the March 2015 issue of TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics by Chapman University. Very cool.

I was reading up on technique recently when I came across the idea of enjambment. It’s a simple, yet powerful method of running one thought from one line to another. A good example is this one from William Carlos Williams from his poem Blizzard:

…the blizzard

drifts its weight

deeper and deeper for three days

or sixty years, eh?….

Reasons why enjambment works:

It creates pacing. In fact, I’ve found it to be an incredible way to control speed. I’ve used it to create urgency (usually without punctuation).

It can introduce contradiction. I love doing this. T. S. Eliot used it in The Waste Land:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Notice how “breeding” suggests life, but the continuation of that thought is lilacs coming out of a “dead land.” Brilliant, isn’t it?

It creates breaks. Much like pacing, enjambment can give a fractured feel to your work. In my poem Veteran’s Day at the Wall, I use enjambment to convey not just a break in the action, but to show the randomness of death during war times.

…Forty-three years
just
to read Thirty names on
thin
paper    Three had
died
Fifteen minutes apart…

It adds visual interest. The perfect example is once again from Williams in his poem The Red Wheelbarrow:

so much depends
upon 

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

In fact, this poem is probably the best example of how enjambment can create mood, force pacing, introduce contradiction (who knew those chickens were coming?), and create a poem that’s as alive to the eye as to the ear.Exercise:Take one of your poems and rewrite it using enjambment. Go free-form for a while, but revise it considering what effect you want to create with the technique.

Poets, do you use enjambment? 
What other techniques do you use to create effect in your writing?