Final answer:
Significant pauses in poetry, marked by a line break or white space, substantially affect the rhythm and pacing of the poem, often adding tension or creating specific effects as employed by poets like Robert Frost and Jean Valentine.
Step-by-step explanation:
A significant pause in the context of poetry would typically be considered longer than a user-specified number of seconds. This pause would be significant enough to be marked by its own line in the poem to affect its rhythm and pacing. The use of pauses can be critical in English language poetry, as seen in the works of poets like Robert Frost, who often uses lines with four feet to tell stories. Conversely, Denise Duhamel utilizes longer lines for a conversational tone, and Larry Levis for his lyric poems. The pauses created by these spaces are a vital part of the poem's structure, often used to convey different effects or to add tension. For example, Jean Valentine's poem 'The Messenger' uses white space within a line to mimic visual elements and create pacing, as opposed to breaking the line, thus creating a staccato effect on the pacing between phrases.