Less meter, more cadence. Probably. There is a difference between inverting the meter and a syntactical inversion. It is not uncommon if writing in iambic free verse to throw in a foot of trochee. Tom did this neat poem where he would switch back and forth between several lines of trochee and iambs. The way he did it was so smooth that unless you were scanning it, you would probably never realize it. My main criterion is does it disturb the reading of the poem. There are poets who can break most of the rules and the reader would never know it unless specifically looking for that. However, when starting, it is better to learn what the rules are before you break them. Plus, this is also true, but not a cliche, after doing so much reading and writing of poetry, one develops an intuition about how to use words that defies any kind of rational approach, or explanation. I think in terms of specific forms, such as sonnet, it is usually pretty obvious when there is a foot, or several, of trochee substituted for iambs. This is generally obvious to a poet, and will disrupt the reading of a non-poet. Unconscious disruption in a poem is what usually makes or breaks a poem for the non-poet reader. They will probably not be able to say why the poem is not good, but they will generally recognize something is amiss.

Sorry to be brief, but I have to run.

Dale

(05-08-2014, 05:52 AM)Erthona Wrote:  Less meter, more cadence. Probably. There is a difference between inverting the meter and a syntactical inversion. It is not uncommon if writing in iambic free verse to throw in a foot of trochee. Tom did this neat poem where he would switch back and forth between several lines of trochee and iambs. The way he did it was so smooth that unless you were scanning it, you would probably never realize it. My main criterion is does it disturb the reading of the poem. There are poets who can break most of the rules and the reader would never know it unless specifically looking for that. However, when starting, it is better to learn what the rules are before you break them. Plus, this is also true, but not a cliche, after doing so much reading and writing of poetry, one develops an intuition about how to use words that defies any kind of rational approach, or explanation. I think in terms of specific forms, such as sonnet, it is usually pretty obvious when there is a foot, or several, of trochee substituted for iambs. This is generally obvious to a poet, and will disrupt the reading of a non-poet. Unconscious disruption in a poem is what usually makes or breaks a poem for the non-poet reader. They will probably not be able to say why the poem is not good, but they will generally recognize something is amiss.

Sorry to be brief, but I have to run.

Dale

This isn't the right thread to talk about meter, but since you mentioned it ... substituting a row of trochees for iambs is usually the kind of thing that no one notices. In fact, if your previous line ended with an unstressed syllable, that syllable can turn that line of trochees into iambs (as far as the sound is concerned). You can always scan a row of trochees as beginning with a headless iamb and ending with a hanging unaccented syllable (or whatever the correct term is). I've been intending to start a thread on scansion to examine metrical anomalies, and I'll do that soon.

(05-08-2014, 08:45 AM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  I've been intending to start a thread on scansion to examine metrical anomalies, and I'll do that soon.

With a little searching you'll find that there are plenty of these threads in discussion and poetry practice already. This one's been quite a good little interactive thread: Basic Metric Exercises

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Additionally, there is a wonderful scansion resource that milo has posted a link to in his forum

i can't say more than i have already, milo put it more eloquently than i ever could. i will ask this,

if inversion sounds wrong to me and let's remember this is a workshop, should i not voice the fact?
fair enough, i conceded that were i not shown by others that inversion and cliche were bad, i'd probably still be using both; though after all the reading i've done since coming to poetry perhaps not as much. i actively look for cliche and inversion as part of my feedback. on odd occasion's i commend a certain cliche phrase if i think it was said with reason and fitted the poem. on odd occasions i've let inversion pass in a poetry form if i can't suggest a non inverted way to make it fit the meter. but if i think it reads as awkward i say so....is that so fucking bad?

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"oh yes, nice bit of inversion there" just doesn't sit well with me.

Well, as I said I was in a bit of a rush, and I was mainly thinking of milo at the time, which is why I used the example I did. I meant in strict IP and in the middle of the line a poet would most likely notice and a non-poet wouldn't but if not handled well would create an unconscious disruption. The point being, despite it not being a great example, is a poet notices on a conscious level what a non-poet will only register at a non-conscious level, but it will still be disruptive to the reading. That is the important part, "it will still be disruptive to the reading". However, in the future Caleb, if you wish to make a point leave me out of it, create your own points instead of riding on my coattails. I dislike knowing that I have to be so careful in anything that I write that it will be completely above reproach. It makes me feel like I am studying philosophy again.

Dale

I think it all comes down to how self-conscious an inversion is. Some are subtle and some aren't. Some bring with them an implication of a new meaning, and some don't. We shouldn't dislike the technique in its entirety just because it isn't always done well.

I read something years ago that really affected me. I've forgotten the name of the author, but I think he was a fairly well-known grammarian. He said that the rules of English are what they are for no other reason than that there is a consensus among educated and influential people. If it were the consensus that a double negative made a negative (as in "There isn't no way"), then so it would be. However, the consensus is that a double negative makes a positive, and so that phrase means there is a way. So if enough people keep saying that they like inversions, and continue using them, they'll survive.

Part of the problem, it seems, is that it's okay to reverse word order in some cases and not in others. Thus, we are all free to put an adverb before a verb or after a verb, and no one will say that it's wrong. But if we start rearranging the major parts of speech (subject, verb, etc.), people object. It all depends on how skillfully it's done.

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(05-08-2014, 09:47 AM)Erthona Wrote:  However, in the future Caleb, if you wish to make a point leave me out of it, create your own points instead of riding on my coattails. I dislike knowing that I have to be so careful in anything that I write that it will be completely above reproach. It makes me feel like I am studying philosophy again.

I find this remark incredibly bizarre. If you're participating in a thread and you make a comment that I disagree with, I'm certainly free to say so in a subsquent post.

(05-08-2014, 10:11 AM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  I think it all comes down to how self-conscious an inversion is. Some are subtle and some aren't. Some bring with them an implication of a new meaning, and some don't. We shouldn't dislike the technique in its entirety just because it isn't always done well.

I would love to see a single example to back up this claim. i could provide 100 that show the opposite on this forum alone but if you could just provide a single example of inversion used effectively in the last 100 years i would love to read it.

(05-08-2014, 10:18 AM)milo Wrote:  I would love to see a single example to back up this claim. i could provide 100 that show the opposite on this forum alone but if you could just provide a single example of inversion used effectively in the last 100 years i would love to read it.

Well, before I refer you to the stanzas from my poem Youth again, I think we need to establish whether it is an inversion to put an adjective after a noun. It's correct to put adverbs after verbs, but I think (though I may be wrong) that it is generally considered incorrect to put an adjective after a noun.

In the stanzas I quoted above, I wrote "Of youth's trail vanishing". The person who critiqued it suggested that I make that "Of youth's vanishing trail". But again, perhaps that isn't the best example. I'm tempted to post a poem I recently finished in which I invert a verb and subject, a poem which contains those lines above that Billy called "gibberish". (They aren't gibberish when you read the whole poem.) Of course, you may not want to have to read a poem of mine in order to get my point, and you might disagree anyway. I'll look for such an instance in a famous poem and post it here.

It all comes down to personal preference. Your preference doesn't prove your point, and my preference doesn't prove my point.

==========

What the hell. I went ahead and posted my poem My Heat in the Mild Critique section. There is a subject/verb inversion in the third stanza.

(05-08-2014, 10:35 AM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  

(05-08-2014, 10:18 AM)milo Wrote:  I would love to see a single example to back up this claim. i could provide 100 that show the opposite on this forum alone but if you could just provide a single example of inversion used effectively in the last 100 years i would love to read it.

Well, before I refer you to the stanzas from my poem Youth again, I think we need to establish whether it is an inversion to put an adjective after a noun. It's correct to put adverbs after verbs, but I think (though I may be wrong) that it is generally considered incorrect to put an adjective after a noun.

In the stanzas I quoted above, I wrote "Of youth's trail vanishing". The person who critiqued it suggested that I make that "Of youth's vanishing trail". But again, perhaps that isn't the best example. I'm tempted to post a poem I recently finished in which I invert a verb and subject, a poem which contains those lines above that Billy called "gibberish". (They aren't gibberish when you read the whole poem.) Of course, you may not want to have to read a poem of mine in order to get my point, and you might disagree anyway. I'll look for such an instance in a famous poem and post it here.

It all comes down to personal preference. Your preference doesn't prove your point, and my preference doesn't prove my point.

Try using examples from someone else's work as you are obviously not objective about your own yet.

How about this, find a published poem written in the last 100 years that uses inversion effectively.

I have never used preference to support my position and it doesn't come down to personal preference as to whether using an inversion adds to a poem. just tell me what you think the inversion adds and how it would be lost if you phrased it properly. i believe you had some promises of a new meaning.

"youth's vanishing trail" isn't an inversion, btw, it is normal English phrasing so the person who told you that was just incorrect.

"Of youth's trail vanishing" isn't an inversion -- it's different to "of youth's vanishing trail" because the first puts emphasis (of meaning, not of meter) on "vanishing" and the second emphasises "trail". It could possibly benefit from a comma, but this is poetry and it's not necessary. Of the two -- although it depends on the context -- I tend to prefer the original.

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...and milo beat me to it

*I feel like I'm in the Sixth Sense today... you know how dead people don't realise they're dead and just keep talking to empty air anyway?

(05-08-2014, 10:50 AM)milo Wrote:  I have never used preference to support my position and it doesn't come down to personal preference as to whether using an inversion adds to a poem. just tell me what you think the inversion adds and how it would be lost if you phrased it properly. i believe you had some promises of a new meaning.

But it all comes down to preference, and that's what you don't seem to recognize. You may disagree with whatever example I come up with. Since I don't have the time to read 30 poems now to look for an inversion, it may be a while. But I've posted my own poem.

(05-08-2014, 11:05 AM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  

(05-08-2014, 10:50 AM)milo Wrote:  I have never used preference to support my position and it doesn't come down to personal preference as to whether using an inversion adds to a poem. just tell me what you think the inversion adds and how it would be lost if you phrased it properly. i believe you had some promises of a new meaning.

But it all comes down to preference, and that's what you don't seem to recognize. You may disagree with whatever example I come up with. Since I don't have the time to read 30 poems now to look for an inversion, it may be a while. But I've posted my own poem.

It has nothing to do with preference. preference can not make a poetic device suggest new meaning, that can be shown

Seeing as you don't seem to recognize what an inversion is at all, I am going to table this part of the discussion until you do a little research. We can return to it later with examples if the need arises.

Oh well, you guys took the fun out of it. I do like the part where grammar is just a preference, but I guess I'll play nice today.

Dale

It rather seems as though there is a hazy consensus that inversion is always bad, wrong, and with no place in poetry. Except maybe sometimes, if it can be justified, and comes with a certificate from the Muses' Guild.

The discussion precisely mirrors those about rhyme: expression is forced, because of the need to find a rhyme. What justification can rhyme have? How, in exact terms, does it improve understanding or meaning? We do not speak that way; it is ridiculous to hope someone will read rhymed poetry without finding it awkward; they will be forever conscious of it, and looking for it. Away with rhyme. While we are at it, is not metre a bit soppy? How does that help with meaning and understanding. Give me just one single example of how metre improved meaning over the last 2000 years. Just one.

And for God's sake, make no effort to write in a poetic way. Just because it poetry, does not give you free rein to depart from the rules of sound, solid, prose. Even that is often too loose: I recommend reading Capablanca v Alekhine in the famous 1927 tournament. There you will find sensible, plain language. That is the way to go: chess notation.

Some of the simpler souls may be wondering just where inversion begins and ends. When withdrawing the poetic licence, it seems only fair to state, in good plain terms, just what is involved. No-one wants to be sneered at, and, it now seems, if they post here, knowing the views of the Pigists, they will either not post, or post so as to demonstrate that they have learnt. How about this little snippet from John Hegley's 'Glad to wear Glasses' book?:

'you're even thicker than your glasses
less of that Rowena I commanded
don't you ever talk about my glasses like that again
ALRIGHT I said
but she'd already gone
I never saw her go though


(I never had my glasses on)'

Do 'I commanded' and 'I said' count? or somewhere he has 'said Rowena? Legal or no?

How about 'In No Strange Land'?

http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/fra...ange-land/

I mean, we must forgive him his silly 'thou's -- but that first verse? Why not just 'We view thee (o) world invisible? WTF is gained by reversing it? Anyone know? It is bang out of order, of course --isn't it?

Bed calls. Happy days and nights all. Even Mr Erthona-Hyde

(05-08-2014, 12:04 PM)abu nuwas Wrote:  It rather seems as though there is a hazy consensus that inversion is always bad, wrong, and with no place in poetry. Except maybe sometimes, if it can be justified, and comes with a certificate from the Muses' Guild.

The discussion precisely mirrors those about rhyme: expression is forced, because of the need to find a rhyme. What justification can rhyme have? How, in exact terms, does it improve understanding or meaning? We do not speak that way; it is ridiculous to hope someone will read rhymed poetry without finding it awkward; they will be forever conscious of it, and looking for it. Away with rhyme. While we are at it, is not metre a bit soppy? How does that help with meaning and understanding. Give me just one single example of how metre improved meaning over the last 2000 years. Just one.

And for God's sake, make no effort to write in a poetic way. Just because it poetry, does not give you free rein to depart from the rules of sound, solid, prose. Even that is often too loose: I recommend reading Capablanca v Alekhine in the famous 1927 tournament. There you will find sensible, plain language. That is the way to go: chess notation.

Some of the simpler souls may be wondering just where inversion begins and ends. When withdrawing the poetic licence, it seems only fair to state, in good plain terms, just what is involved. No-one wants to be sneered at, and, it now seems, if they post here, knowing the views of the Pigists, they will either not post, or post so as to demonstrate that they have learnt. How about this little snippet from John Hegley's 'Glad to wear Glasses' book?:

'you're even thicker than your glasses
less of that Rowena I commanded
don't you ever talk about my glasses like that again
ALRIGHT I said
but she'd already gone
I never saw her go though


(I never had my glasses on)'

Do 'I commanded' and 'I said' count? or somewhere he has 'said Rowena? Legal or no?

How about 'In No Strange Land'?

http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/fra...ange-land/

I mean, we must forgive him his silly 'thou's -- but that first verse? Why not just 'We view thee (o) world invisible? WTF is gained by reversing it? Anyone know? It is bang out of order, of course --isn't it?

Bed calls. Happy days and nights all. Even Mr Erthona-Hyde

rather than go off on crazy tangents about all the other poetic devices (actual poetic devices) that have nothing to do with inversion, why not just say what you think works so well about inversion that modern writers should start adding it to all of their poems.

(05-08-2014, 12:04 PM)abu nuwas Wrote:  It rather seems as though there is a hazy consensus that inversion is always bad, wrong, and with no place in poetry. Except maybe sometimes, if it can be justified, and comes with a certificate from the Muses' Guild.

Sixth. Fucking. Sense.

I swear.

abu wrote: "It rather seems as though there is a hazy consensus that inversion is always bad, wrong, and with no place in poetry."

Inversion poetic?: any change from a basic word order or syntactic sequence, as in the placement of a subject after an auxiliary verb in a question or after the verb in an exclamation, as “When will you go?” and “How beautiful is the rose!”

Bad? "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" --> better?--> "I will compare you to a summer's day" -->best "You are a summer's day"

However Abu, I can defend meter ("meter", that's how we write it) and rhyme. It's catchy!

Dale the nice

(05-08-2014, 10:35 AM)Caleb Murdock Wrote:  

(05-08-2014, 10:18 AM)milo Wrote:  I would love to see a single example to back up this claim. i could provide 100 that show the opposite on this forum alone but if you could just provide a single example of inversion used effectively in the last 100 years i would love to read it.

Well, before I refer you to the stanzas from my poem Youth again, I think we need to establish whether it is an inversion to put an adjective after a noun. It's correct to put adverbs after verbs, but I think (though I may be wrong) that it is generally considered incorrect to put an adjective after a noun.

In the stanzas I quoted above, I wrote "Of youth's trail vanishing". The person who critiqued it suggested that I make that "Of youth's vanishing trail". But again, perhaps that isn't the best example. I'm tempted to post a poem I recently finished in which I invert a verb and subject, a poem which contains those lines above that Billy called "gibberish". (They aren't gibberish when you read the whole poem.) Of course, you may not want to have to read a poem of mine in order to get my point, and you might disagree anyway. I'll look for such an instance in a famous poem and post it here.

It all comes down to personal preference. Your preference doesn't prove your point, and my preference doesn't prove my point.

==========

What the hell. I went ahead and posted my poem My Heat in the Mild Critique section. There is a subject/verb inversion in the third stanza.

stop it with your poetry, this is a discussion not a showcase. and i'm allowed to think those lines are gibberish, as you put them up they stood, i'm not physic. use someone elses poetry. have a look through the site and post a few inverted lines. better yet post so inverted lines from a well known poet.

i'm sorry sorry sorry but i just see most of the argument for inversion as out and out bullshit. i see people calling it a poetic device, i see people saying think "if the consensus of people say inversion is wrong ...sis it really wrong" well yes that what everyone except those who use it agree on. they agree that it's shite poetry. and in all honest i'd never use one my my poems to prove a point about poetry apart from showing it as an example of shite poetry. you put a piece of poetry of yours up calab and your putting it up for discussion. it would not bode too well. i've read a few of yours and i can't say i'd use them as examples of good poetry [you brought it up, i'm just replying to you]

if you invert the odds are your poetry will not be of a good quality. inversion is not a poetic device it is an aberration for which poets who use it should be flayed. you will not brain wash me abu

(05-08-2014, 05:19 PM)billy Wrote:  stop it with your poetry, this is a discussion not a showcase. and i'm allowed to think those lines are gibberish, as you put them up they stood, i'm not physic. use someone elses poetry. have a look through the site and post a few inverted lines. better yet post so inverted lines from a well known poet.

i'm sorry sorry sorry but i just see most of the argument for inversion as out and out bullshit. i see people calling it a poetic device, i see people saying think "if the consensus of people say inversion is wrong ...sis it really wrong" well yes that what everyone except those who use it agree on. they agree that it's shite poetry. and in all honest i'd never use one my my poems to prove a point about poetry apart from showing it as an example of shite poetry. you put a piece of poetry of yours up calab and your putting it up for discussion. it would not bode too well. i've read a few of yours and i can't say i'd use them as examples of good poetry [you brought it up, i'm just replying to you]

if you invert the odds are your poetry will not be of a good quality. inversion is not a poetic device it is an aberration for which poets who use it should be flayed. you will not brain wash me abu

So Billy, tell me, are you really in charge of this place? This is your forum? Is that really possible?

Half the time your rants make you sound like you're drunk.

I use examples from my own poetry because I'm familiar with my poetry. I spent time struggling with whether I should leave that inversion in my poem, so I was ready to give it as an example. And by the way, "My Heat" is a good poem -- I'm sorry you can't recognize that.

Also, a poetry forum like this IS a showcase for people's poems. I mean, a forum like this is where people come to show other people what they are working on.

The moderators on this forum are chronically hostile and patronizing. I'm getting really tired of it. You pretty much have to be a masochist to participate here.

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I wrote my last post 35 minutes ago and I haven't been banned yet. I INSIST ON BEING BANNED -- WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG? AND THIS TIME I WANT TO BE BANNED FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE!

See, Tom was right!