Endjambent?

[Brownlie]

Enjambment? wtf is it exactly. does it have any nuts and bolts that would better help us fasten it down. I ask because i thought i knew what enjambment was but now i'm not so sure,

I used to use it in a way to break sentences at a comma or other piece of punctuation. always thought that ending a line with and, but, or, yet, for, nor, so, or other contraction was a no no except under a few certain circumstances. ie blah blah, but... etc

i often see it used in a way that breaks a completely natural grammatical sentence in half; adding unneeded stresses as it happens. i sometimes comment on enjambment and maybe I've had it wrong all this time.

After reading some of the free verse and blank verse poetry on this site and others, i'm sort of seeing a universal fault with a lot of it. okay, the universal part may be just what i see

some poetry is so broken up as to make me pause every two words or so.
i think i may have posted a shit load of similar poetry on here myself. but now i see it as wrong accept poetic license but bad enjambment like bad grammar is and should be used. i'm still a believer that normally you shouldn't end a line with and or if but now it's like i've had an epiphany.

there has to be a reasonable reason why we end a line where we do, trying to be a clever bastard just doesn't cut it; though succeeding to be a clever bastard does.

going back to my free and sometimes blank verse. i see now that the enjambment is lacking to say the least.

looking at a lot of your poetry i see the same
"moi" you say, and i reply yes you. +

tell me i'm wrong show me i'm wrong but i see the light most of us are crap at knowing and using enjambment.

replies please, don't google lets get what it is and what we thunk it was out in the open, i do acquiesce that there are some on the site that know but would wager a hefty sum that it's not more than a handful of two. (i'm not one of the handful or two )

Well you said no google but I had to get merriam webster involved. "the running over of a sentence from one verse or couplet into another so that closely related words fall in different lines " What is the effect of pausing in a line and continuing a thought in the next? I'm sure there is not only one answer to this. My take is that enjambment is what is defined in Merriam Webster and that you can use it to your own ends. I had to analyze To His Coy Mistress for a class and one analysis said that the enjambment made the narrator's appeal more passionate and rushed. The poem is about carpe diem and time and he starts off slowly and the poem gets faster as it expresses and he feels his time for passion on earth is limited. I think if you seperate a thought you will move on to the next line more quickly because your mind wants to assimilate the meaning. Some may use enjambment to simply fit a meter or rhyme. There's my two cents on it.