If enjambment in syllabic or stressed metrical verse creates a tension by holding a key part of meaning over to be delivered in the following line, it's my understanding that this tension is heightened by the sudden disruption to any correlation between line length and semantic/syntactic units.
In that context, how does free verse deal with enjambment? I've noticed a number of well-known poets largely steering clear of it, turning each line into a semantic and syntactic chunk, only invoking it in clearcut cases. Meanwhile, others use it regularly, seeking to fragment and distort both meaning and expected sentence structures. This varyiing use of enjambment also seems tied in with contrary aesthetics and approaches.
One last question though...and, no, it isn't loaded, it's simply an attempt to shake off my own prejudices: how can enjambment in free verse ever generate as much tension as in metred verse if it lacks the additional tool of simultaneously breaking with form?
This is the third instalment of groups of 3 poems selected from my 2010
sequence of poems which takes Homer’s The Odyssey as its starting point.
The full s...
