Nathan Jones attempts to explore and demystify the creative process, pontificates, assonifies, postulates and rhymbles, during a year-long partnership with the imaginative powerhouse that is the Bluecoat.

3. Annotated: when the line completely breaks the syntax of a sentence and makes you read it oddly

“heaving the breath as if

more breath than for a

weekend of breathing”

Try this! ….

Below is a poem by Philip Booth, called Terms. In this poem he uses the metaphor of ‘the line’ in shipping to discuss and extrapolate on the importance of tension and various types of ‘line’ in poetry – and some ‘other events’. It’s a great poem, I think. Here I am publishing it without any line breaks. Can you recreate the various effects of line-breaking, intended by Booth to keep his poem moving and engaging? Anyway, even if you can’t recreate exactly what Booth tries to do, perhaps you can experiment with your own effects?

(please cut and paste the poem into the comments box below and add your own line-breaks)

On land any length of rope that’s hitched to something beyond itself and takes the strain is called the standing part. Tossed over a beam or limb, with a slipknot tied in the farther end, the standing part could be said to end in a noose. At sea, put to use, rope changes its name to line. The part spliced into an eye or, say, made fast to a shackle, the part that does the work, that works, remains the standing part. Any loop or slack curve in the running part of the line, the part that’s not working, becomes a bight; and the part of the running part that’s let go, or finally eased off until there’s no reserve left, is known as the bitter end. As it is in other events, ashore or at sea, that come to the end of the line.

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Like this:

On land
any length of rope that’s hitched
to something beyond itself
and takes the strain
is called the standing part.

Tossed over
a beam or limb,
with a slipknot tied in
the farther end,
the standing part
could be said to end
in a noose.
At sea, put to use,
rope changes its name to line.
The part spliced into an eye
or, say, made fast to a shackle,
the part that does the work, that works,
remains the standing part.

Any loop
or slack curve in the running
part of the line,
the part that’s not working,
becomes a bight;
and the part of the running part
that’s let go,
or finally eased off
until there’s no reserve left,
is known as the bitter end.

As it is
in other events, ashore
or at sea,
that come to the end of the line.