The line: recent experiments in New Zealand and Australia

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe line is arguably the most defining feature of poetic structure. Discussions of prosody are prone to the limitations of convention, though the poet may strive for more freedom in the line. This paper begins by noting an example of a radical use of page space from Mallarmé and goes on to describe recent innovations and experiments with line breaks in work by Australian and New Zealand poets, and to summarise the functions of the line breaks used. These explorations of form show that the poetic line is neither static nor redundant in contemporary practice, and suggest the need for poets to reappraise the possibilities made available to them by the work of their peers.