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Poetry & prosody

Rejet (run-over)

A short element of the sentence thrown to the start of the next line, highlighted by that isolation.

The rejet is enjambment's most expressive form: a brief element of the sentence — a word, a short group — is thrown to the start of the next line, where it stands alone in full light. The run-over word receives the full weight of the line break.

The mechanism is optical as much as rhythmic: the line ending creates a micro-expectation, and the word landing right after resolves it by underlining it. It's meter's equivalent of the close-up. Use with economy: the rejet draws its force from rarity, and a poem that runs over at every line no longer isolates anything.

Example

"…and watched the road / vanish." (the verb alone at the line's start)

Put it into practice

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