Enjambment and End-Stopped Lines in Verse

Read poetry so that line breaks shape, but do not chop up, the sentences.

In poetry, a line can end with punctuation (end-stopped) or run its sentence into the next line (enjambed). Inexperienced readers pause heavily at every line break, which turns enjambed verse into choppy fragments. Look at this original stanza: 'The gate stood open all that night / and no one came to close it, / though the wind kept asking. ' The first line is enjambed; the sentence continues, so you should give only the slightest hesitation, a breath of suspense, before 'and no one came. ' The second line ends with a comma, so a real but brief pause belongs there.

The final line ends the sentence. Follow the punctuation for your main pauses and treat a bare line break as a tiny lift, not a stop. Poets use enjambment to create tension or surprise, sometimes making a line seem to mean one thing until the next line completes it. Your slight hesitation at the break lets listeners feel that double meaning.

• 1End-stopped lines end with punctuation; enjambed lines run on.
• 2Follow punctuation for major pauses.
• 3Give enjambed breaks only a slight hesitation.