Literary Device: Caesura

A pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics.

Example:

At dinner, in that careful rouge of light
of five or six martinis, you could pass
for Ginger Rongers; we could dance all night
on tiny tabletops as slick as glass
in flying shiny shoes. As Fred Astaire,
my wrinkles grow distinguished as we dine,
my bald spot festers with the growth of hair,
I grow intelligent about the wine.

Function:

In Ted Kooser's "Anniversary", the literary device 'caesura' is employed to reenforce the atmosphere of a couple's anniversary wedding. As the couple are drinking, forgetting their age, the lines breaks are placed in such as way that the poem read very quickily. When the poem turns to descriptions of age and reality, line breaks are placed at natural pauses in speech (caesura's) and underlined with punctuation, making the poem read particularly slowly, like an old persons movement.