Writer Tools: Line Report
What this is. A tool for poets. Paste one poem and it draws the poem's silhouette, counts syllables line by line, and audits where each line ends, which is the decision free verse rests on.
Denise Levertov called the line break a form of punctuation, worth "roughly a half-comma in duration," and complained that many gifted poets use it haphazardly. This checks whether yours is doing work: how many lines end on a pause, how many run on, and how many end on a word like the or of.
Your poem
Source: Denise Levertov, "On the Function of the Line" (1979). Syllables are estimated from spelling and will miss by one now and then. A weak line ending is sometimes the point; the tool only shows you where they are. Nothing you paste is uploaded.