What does a line break usually do to the last word of the line?

• It makes the word lose stress and fade
• It forces the word to rhyme onward
• It lets the word hang and gain weight

What is the best first move with a new poem?

• Read it aloud more than once and mark what strikes you
• List every device name you can find in the first pass
• Look up the poet's whole life story before reading a line

A paragraph about a poem can name zero devices and still be strong, as long as each claim rests on quoted words and says what those words do.

In a poem mourning a friend, two lines march in a steady beat, then one line stumbles on soft syllables. What should you argue?

• The stumbling line likely carries grief or doubt
• The poet lost control of the metre in that line
• The beat means nothing, so the reader can ignore it

A line ends on the word alone while the sentence runs on. What does the break most likely do?

• It proves the poem has no regular rhythm
• It lets 'alone' hang before the sense continues
• It shows the stanza is longer than it should be

A strict form sets up an expectation in the reader, so a break in its pattern signals something.

A student writes that the hard repeated beats sound musical. Why does this earn little credit?

• It uses the wrong technical name for the beat pattern
• It calls the sound musical without tying it to sense
• It quotes the beats instead of describing each one

A student writes that a broken pattern near the end proves the poet lost control. What is wrong?

• It forgets to say which form the poem is written in
• It quotes too little from the poem to prove it
• It treats a meaningful departure as a mistake