" Marvin Bell always looked very closely at how lines could break, how you could put over one line into the second line. How you could stop the line two or three times within the line: You could make it stop. "
- Juan Felipe Herrera

In the quote under discussion, Juan Felipe Herrera speaks about Marvin Bell’s approach to poetry, focusing on the meticulous way he structured lines within poems. Specifically, Bell paid close attention to how a single line could be divided into smaller segments or continued onto another line, often interrupting the flow of text multiple times within one line. This technique adds complexity and nuance to poetic composition.

The deeper meaning of Herrera’s comment highlights Marvin Bell's innovative approach to poetry by emphasizing the importance of rhythm and pause in creating effective verse. By breaking lines and inserting pauses, a poet can control how readers engage with the words on the page, guiding their interpretation through deliberate stops and starts that might not be present if sentences were written more conventionally. This technique also reflects an awareness of the visual impact of poetry, suggesting that it is as much about layout as it is about content.

Juan Felipe Herrera, a renowned poet himself, speaks in this quote about his fellow poet Marvin Bell. Herrera has been influential in American literature and was appointed as the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2015 to 2017. His insights into Bell’s poetic techniques offer valuable perspectives on the craft of writing poetry, emphasizing the importance of rhythm and line breaks for enhancing emotional depth and reader engagement.