How are sentences broken up in modern poetry?

Many people accuse the new poems of being short and long, breaking sentences and lines arbitrarily, and even deny the new poems because of this. It is really arrogance and prejudice! It is undeniable that some new poems are too casual in their sentences and lines, which makes them a failure. Generally speaking, serious and responsible poets pay attention to sentence segmentation and line division, and do not dare to take it lightly. Most of them have basis and reason when they break up sentences and branch lines. According to my investigation, there are at least five reasons:

1. Cut a sentence that is too long into several sentences or lines.

The person who is still flying

Close your eyelashes, fall and rise again

The second and third lines can be connected into one line, but it is too long. Hence it is divided into two lines. Another example is a line from Yu Guangzhong's "When I Die":

Two tubes of eternal music, surging, facing east

Break a long sentence into three sentences, and read it briefly Pause so you don't run out of breath. Please note that the so-called "sentence" here is not the "action" mentioned above.

2. Break sentences and lines for rhyme.

The phenomenon of breaking sentences for rhyme is common in Yu Guangzhong's poems. For example, the first line of "When I Die":

When I die, bury me in the Yangtze River and the Yellow River

Since the words "I" and "河" rhyme, so Yu Guangzhong added a comma under the word "I" to make the reading more rhythmic. It doesn't matter if you don't add commas, but the rhythm is weaker. Furthermore, for example, the ending of the third move of Luo Qing's "Methods of Revenge":

In order to kill you

I will not hesitate to use the most vicious and last resort

- Kill myself

Because, in this way

you will feel at ease and satisfied

and you will not have to worry about it all the time

Thinking about me sleeplessly

Thinking about me...

The last three lines are obviously separated to rhyme with "e" and "o". Once again, the so-called "sentence" and "line" here have different meanings. Sometimes a line is exactly one sentence, and sometimes a line is composed of several sentences.

3. To create visual effects.

Sometimes the poet wants to create a visual experience, and deliberately divides the poem into special lines:

A cabin full of fish is submerged in the water

Quietly

Huan

Yue

Of course, the word "joy" can be combined into one line, but the poet Ku Ling felt that this would not give a visual experience and sense of movement, so he arranged the two words "joy" to occupy one line each, and the word "huan" was lower than the word "yue" In two frames, the dynamic movement of the fish school is vividly visible. Another example is the wonderful passage in Du Shisan's poem "Shoes":

Bumpy, bumpy, rugged and winding

Points

Head

This poem describes some shoes that dance to the music on the dance floor. These shoes have also traveled north and south with their owners and experienced many hardships. Now they move on the floor. These two lines use sentence cutting and word arrangement to simulate the actual situation of messy dancing shoes on the dance floor.

4. To create a sense of time and rhythm.

The passage of time can be divided into fast and slow, and the rhythm can also be divided into fast and slow. In addition, it can be divided into happy and sad.

Cleverly segmented sentences and lines can express the above-mentioned different senses of time and rhythm. Feima's poem "Old Woman" is an excellent example:

Husky Record

Deeply

The grooves

on the forehead

Over and over

Singing

I want to live

I want to live

I want

The author uses a grooved record with a hoarse sound to metaphor the old woman, and the lines on the record are a metaphor for the wrinkles on the old woman’s forehead. , the hoarse sound of the record is a metaphor for the dying old woman, which is very appropriate and powerful! The second paragraph can also be divided into two lines:

Deep grooves on the forehead

Singing over and over again

And the author deliberately divided it into five lines , reading gives people a sense of time and slow pace, and makes people feel the dying struggle of the dying old woman! Form and content are perfectly matched here.

5. In order to create an effect that seems to be broken but not broken, and seems to be connected but not connected.

This is the biggest reason why poets break sentences or separate lines. In other words, poets most often cut sentences or separate lines based on this factor. This phenomenon can be seen in the second paragraph of Zheng Chouyu's poem "The Last Spring":

After all, it is the day of separation, and the empty wine glass

may have been poured out, ah, Scholar

What will emerge from your first light stroke of ink?

"Empty wine glass" and "scholar" are respectively the "subjects" of "The topic of tomorrow may have been poured out" and "What will the light ink of your first stroke be?" Each "subject" is isolated at the end of the previous line. When reading this paragraph, there will be a break, but as you read on, it will be "connected" immediately. This is what is called "seemingly broken but not broken". There is an excellent example in the last paragraph of "Bada Shanren" by the mainland poet He Furen:

And we look at paintings

The paintings are also looking at us

Sorry, If

we grew an extra ear in order to serve the powerful

and dressed up to go to work early in the morning

Bada Shanren and his The paintings are all out of touch with the world, so those who appreciate the paintings should also have an unworldly and decent mind, otherwise they are not worthy of being an audience, otherwise they will be looked down upon by the paintings. This is what He Furen wanted to express. The second line only says "we" and is cut off, leaving another line for "can't afford". Readers are surprised when they read "I can't afford". It turns out that adding "I can't afford" in the second line to the third line makes the sentence complete. And when readers read the word "cannot afford", they will also feel that it does not make sense. Then they will connect to the previous line and read it together, so that the sentence will be smooth and the meaning of the sentence will be reasonable.

Poets not only have reasons for cutting off sentences and dividing lines into lines, but they also mostly have purposes. General readers often mistakenly think that cutting off sentences and dividing lines is arbitrary and random, which is really unfair to the poet. In fact, the same phenomenon of sentence fragmentation as in new poetry often exists in classical poetry, such as "Don't wait too long, your young head will grow gray" and "Start from the beginning, clean up the old mountains and rivers" which seem to be broken but not broken. There are also situations where a sentence is cut into two, Those who reject new poetry should rethink this phenomenon and this issue.