bplist00 _WebSubresources_WebMainResource ^WebResourceURL_WebResourceResponse_WebResourceData_WebResourceMIMEType_ohttp://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emag/subscribers/downloads/archive_emag/_emagpast/_script_css/text_archive.cssO!bplist00noX$versionX$objectsY$archiverT$top ""()012NOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdhiU$null !R$6S$10R$2R$7R$3S$11R$8V$classR$4R$9R$0R$5R$1 ! #$%&[NS.relativeWNS.base _ohttp://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emag/subscribers/downloads/archive_emag/_emagpast/_script_css/text_archive.css*+,-Z$classnameX$classesUNSURL./UNSURLXNSObject#AJ 3456BWNS.keysZNS.objects789:;<=>?@A CDEFGHIJKLMVServer\Content-TypeWX-Cache]Last-ModifiedSViaZConnection]Accept-RangesTDate^X-Cache-Lookup^Content-LengthTEtag_Apache/2.2.16 (Debian)Xtext/css_8MISS from wttaos03, MISS from netprotect.victoria.edu.hk_Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:00:16 GMT_$1.0 wttaos03:80 (squid/2.6.STABLE17)Zkeep-aliveUbytes_Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:41:38 GMT_)MISS from netprotect.victoria.edu.hk:8080T2276_"5062e-8e4-48ea57684b800"*+ef_NSMutableDictionaryeg/\NSDictionary*+jk_NSHTTPURLResponselm/_NSHTTPURLResponse]NSURLResponse_NSKeyedArchiverpq_WebResourceResponse # - 2 7 \ b } UZentw} *8=L[`y5af r O/* CSS Document for ARCHIVE only */ /*BODY: page base setting*/ body {background-color:#FFFFFF; margin-left:1em; margin-top:1em; border:0; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif} /*MAIN TITLE: colour dark gray 12pt bold*/ .main_title {color:#666666; font-weight:bold; font-style:normal; font-size:12pt; line-height:11pt;} /*SUB TITLE: colour dark gray 11pt bold*/ .sub_title {color:#666666; font-weight:bold; font-style:normal; font-size:11pt; line-height:11pt;} /*INTRO PARAGRAPH: colour dark gray 10pt bold*/ .intro {color:#666666; font-weight:bold; font-style:normal; font-size:10pt; line-height:11pt;} /*MAIN BODY TEXT: colour dark gray 10pt normal*/ .main_text {color:#666666; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:10pt; line-height:11pt;} .main_text a {color: #49597D; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-size:9pt; line-height:11pt; text-decoration:none;} .main_text a:hover { color: #448EB0} /*QUOTE: colour dark gray 10pt normal*/ .quote {color:#666666; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; font-size:10pt; line-height:11pt; margin-left:2em; margin-right:3em;} .quote a {color: #49597D; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-size:9pt; line-height:11pt; text-decoration:none;} .quote a:hover { color: #448EB0} /*AUTHORS NAME: colour dark gray 10pt bold*/ .author {color:#666666; font-weight:bold; font-style:normal; font-size:9pt; line-height:11pt;} /*AUTHORS NAME: colour dark gray 10pt bold*/ .magazine {color:#666666; font-weight:normal; font-style:italic; font-size:9pt; line-height:11pt;} /*colour white 12pt*/ .headerwhite {color:#FFFFFF; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-size:12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;} .headerwhite a {color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-size:12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;} .headerwhite a:hover {color: #FFFFFF} /*colour white 10pt*/ .headerwhitesm {color:#FFFFFF; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-size:10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;} .headerwhitesm a {color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-size:10pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;} .headerwhitesm a:hover {color: #FFFFFF} Xtext/css_WebResourceTextEncodingName_WebResourceFrameName_khttp://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emag/subscribers/downloads/archive_emag/_emagpast/Lang%20Poet%20Enjam.htmlO G
The
language of poetry –Enjambment
Gillian Clarke
‘Enjambment’ is a word even poets might have to look up to check if
it names something they do. It is a word for one of poetry’s dance-steps.
It’s the nano-second pause at the end of a line, or the two nano-seconds
at the end of a stanza, where the meaning runs on, leaping the gap to land at
the start of the next line, or the next stanza. It pauses, and continues, the
toe-to-heel step as the dancer reaches the edge of the space and turns. It’s
the nose-nudge of the goldfish against glass on its journey round the tank.
Prose is made of sentences while poetry is made of lines. The pattern a poem
makes on the page is musical notation, or choreography. Enjambment arrests the
sentence in its stride, forcing it to dance to poetry’s tune. Tension lies
in the space between music and meaning. It adds suspense, ambiguity, drama.
In Legend I tell a true story divided into five 5-line stanzas. The story unfolds
slowly in sentences that run over the lines, and, at the moment of truth at
the end of stanza four, there’s nothing for it but to leap a stanza gap,
just as I remember leaping the cracks in the ice to pull my sister out of the
lake.
Legend
The rooms were mirrors
for that luminous face,
the morning windows ferned
with cold. Outside
a level world of snow.
Voiceless birds in the trees
like notes in the books
in the pian#o stool.
She let us suck top-of-the-milk
burst from the bottles like corks.
Then wrapped shapeless
we stumped to the park
between the parapets of snow
in the wake of the shovellers,
cardboard rammed in the tines of garden forks.
The lake was an empty rink
and I stepped out,
pushing my sister first
onto its creaking floor.
When I brought her home,
shivering, wailing, soaked,
they thought me a hero.
But I still wake at night,
to hear the Snow Queen’s knuckles crack,
black water running fingers through the ice.
This article first appeared in emagazine, Issue 4, Summer 1999