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[–] 5 points 4 months ago

A wise person once said: if a poem doesn't contain any noteworthy poetic elements besides arbitrary line breaks, it's probably not a good poem. Line breaks are a powerful and useful tool, but they must have a purpose. They can be used for cadence, for emphasis, or de-emphasisis. They most notably place additional emphasis on the words that fall on the beginning and end of lines. They can create structure and pattern in what is otherwise free verse.

Very often though, they are unfortunately simply used as a shortcut. A person reading a text with line breaks like this instead of full margin-to-margin text expects a poem, and mentally adjusts accordingly. It will automatically feel like a poem to the reader.

That is unearned, though. Random and liberal use of the enter key does not make you a poet.

In this particular instance I personally find that they actually detract from the writing itself. Though I am hardly an authority either.

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