I have been wondering about the question of where do you line-break a sentence for the longest time, ever since I was taught the correct way but later forgot. Do you break it before or after a preposition? Before or after an article?
At the nth time that this question came up again today, I asked an editor at work. Through our discussion, I realized that the significance of a line break is negligible in ordinary English, however, far more important in poetry! That’s it, I most likely learnt it in high school English class in relation to poetry.
When I look around now, I can see patterns and antipatterns in all line breaks. But it’s just so absurb that when I didn’t have the answer, I never noticed them at all.
“Read some poems and see how many have line breaks on articles (the, a, an), prepositions (of, in, by), conjunctions (but, and, or) or other “transitional” words – most poems don’t end lines on these “inconsequential” words because poets know that line breaks are a source of POWER in your poem, and why would you want to focus on the word “the”? (At least, unintentionally focus on the word due to carelessness and not a choice).” – Poetry X
