My definition of a stanza is a poem's version of a paragraph. A stanza usually cosists of five to fifteen lines followed by a space between the last line of the stanza and the first line of the following stanza.
An example of a stanza can be found alomst everywhere. Like the one below:
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (SHEL SILVERSTEIN)
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends.
With out stanzas like the two in the poem above, everything in a poem(any poem) would not make sense. It would be one large never-ending paragraph. How dreadful and confusing that would make poems!
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