inversions in poetry

[abu nuwas]

You got me fair banged to rights, Guv'nor!

i know by answering you i'm pouring oil on the fire, i also realise you probably know a lot more than i, but i'll answer anyway because i damn well like you sir.

Billy, old bean, I love haute cuisine, and fish and chips, and every type of cooking in between. I object to baristas who think that I ought not to have milk, let alone sugar, because of all the trouble they have gone to, but otherwise - I'm a grub man. God forbid that I ever learn not to enjoy this or that.

As to this inversion thing, you must ask yourself this:

1 Does it grate when you read Romantic poets using this? Can't you stand Keats and co?

not in the slightest, i enjoy most of of the poetry from said period and the poets who write period pieces.

2 If you find it acceptable in old poets, then do you need to know the author, or date, to allow you to judge whether it jars or not?

not in the slightest, i read the poem as a period piece, it's a bit like seeing someone at a rave in 15th century costume, i think "what a silly bastard" were it however being worn to a fancy dress, leanardo convention or a black adder admiration party i'd say "you really look the part"

3 If you need info about the author, then do you accept that you no longer just look at the text and get from it what you will?

this question makes it seem you already answered the previous question for me by proxy doesn't it. how cruel ... i don't need info about an author unless i'm interested in their poetry, if i don't like a poem, i don't check out the author

Turn back, Billy, turn back! This edgy stuff will take you to places undreamt of -- like our poor A-level students who are to study texting, and the lyrics of one Dizzee Rascal! You see? Leave the well-trod straight and narrow, and you are in a wilderness.

at this point i'll quote one of calebs friends;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, ...

i do hate texting but it does in it's absurdity (my POV) seem to be becoming a part of the language, as such i'm sure i could'nt dismiss it out of hand should i see it in a poem. i really do try not to dismiss anything in a poem out of hand but openly admit to being fairly uneducated and often uncrafted where poetry is concerned. i have often been usurped by better critics after i have left a comment and realised they were correct and i was not.
i have never proclaimed myself as a great critic or poet and always try to be humble about both, but and this is a big but, i will voice my opinion (as my opinion) i do not like inversion, i used to but not any more. there will be exceptions when i think inversions work but these i'm sure will be rare. in general we are a site of poets who have yet to learn almost any aspect of their craft, this includes me. i'm at the stage where i know a little but not enough. i'm capable of realising this fact, some cannot. some have to be right at the expense of poetry. that's their choice, i will however always do my best to be honest and sincere in my opinion. this is a lot different than defending the indefensible. i respect your claim of liking inversion, not sure i believe you but i do respect it, but have to differ for the reasons i gave.

i really believe that poetry is a craft. we learn the craft, we add to the craft, it is ever evolving and one day inversion may be admired (not by me) by more than a few. i dare say in ten years time all poetry will be textspeak. but the point is this, we need to learn where the breaks are before we start driving a sports car

You got me fair banged to rights Guv'nor!

[Erthona]

Edward,

Can I read Shakespeare and enjoy him. Yes, after several years study I can read Shakespeare in the original and understand what he means, I do so fairly frequent as I have a copy of the original folio. Can the average person, who has not foolishly wasted his time as I have enjoy Shakespeare in the original, let alone understand him. I think not. As for Keats these days I quickly weary of him. I understand what you are saying because I most closely align with the New Critic school myself. What Keats tells me instantly is when he is from, plus I have always found Keats fairly full of affectation. This is true for any of the later three Romantics (Shelly, Byron, and Keats), but it seems especially true of Keats. When I first started learning poetry, I wrote like the Romantics, because that was who I was studying. However, I learned that to write that way was generally a distraction to the reader, or so the few who were willing to read what I had read told me...and told...well, you get the picture.

Today I speaketh not in inversion my fine fellow, nor talketh I in affected manner, why then prithee shouldest I write thusly, if I speaketh and mine readers speaketh not the same? Confusion of a needless variety is caused to this overheated globe that siteth atop mine shoulders.

Faireth thee well in thine period friend (with thou rapidly dwindling population), and I wilst faireth well in mine.


Sincerely, thou bosom friend,

dale, the terse

[ChristopherSea]

Perhaps inversion would be more palatable to the plain-language club, were it called by its other name: anastrophe. There! Feeling better? Anastrophe -- rolls around the tongue doesn't it? And -Greek terminology always has that extra appeal.

Of course, there may be some churlish souls who, having invested so much in preaching against inversion, they will never come round. They like real poetic devices, like anaphora. Or do they? If anastrophe is no good, perhaps that is old hat too? Old-fashioned, not of the moment, uncool. Perhaps it may have been useful for Churchill and fighting on the beaches, and fighting on hill-sides and all -but in our brave new world? I shall send off for a correspondence course:' Poetic Devices in 10 Easy Lessons!' They'll tell me what good and what currently unfashionable.

none of this explains why you are such a fan of inversion, what you think it adds to poetry or why poets should consider adding it to their next poem. It is actually a pointless and churlish non-sequiter

Now, Milo, I am wandering again. You asked a simple, plain man's question.

''What works so well that modern writers should use inversion/anastrophe.'' I paraphrase.

Ask yourself the purpose of any other poetic device, so-called. Tricks or knacks perhaps as god terms. Rhyme, say. Why, it can add to the sound of the poem, pure and simple. More, it can enable the writer, by using the rhyme, to point the reader in an unexpected place, and give emphasis to a particular locution, or word. In that way, the poet wins against the belaboured plain-speaker: he can by emphasising words through rhyme, open new avenues of thought in the reader. The corollary, of course, is that he can get the reader to gloss over some words which may be necessary because language demands them, but whose meaning is not much wanted at the fore.

That is what anastrophe does, that is why modern writers should seek to acquire the skill to use it. Metre is improved by it;it is all good.

rhyme is a poetic tool that is different from inversion (as is meter) if you would like to discuss the effects and usage of rhyme I am more than happy to start another thread.

Metre is not improved by inversion, some poets invert when they cannot effectively write in meter without doing so but good meter can be written quite easily without ever inverting.

---

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.

---

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!

this is unacceptable behaviour in the discussion forums. If you insist on petulantly stamping your feet take it to the pig's arse.

/mod

Oh yes, billy is our dictator. Of course he's always drinking and spouting off, and he's a mean drunk too. Moreover, he makes us all drink as well, but it is cheap whiskey. He hordes all of the fine scotch for himself. He calls us pigs and keeps us penned up in a sty, while he sits on a porcelain throne. It’s appalling, but we love it.

[ellajam]

I understand Loretta's reluctance to give up her reversed syntax.

Here is one of mine where I loved the sound of those lines that folded in on themselves. My attempt to straighten out the syntax resulted in a lifeless blob. A better poet may have pulled it off, but I guess a better poet wouldn't have written the original. Still, it became worse, not better.

I've been learning IP lately and trying to keep a natural speech pattern. It's fun and interesting, but poetically I think it's the step backwards that hopefully will lead to two forward.

I agree with billy that it's important to recognize inversion in my work and if I want to use it i need to control it to the poem's advantage.

Ha, on rereading this thread in response to Quix's question I found this post. Milo recently urged me to take another look at that poem and after my time spent here I was indeed able to improve it and make it work without the inversions. It's pretty much agreed that it's a smoother read now. Go know.

[Quixilated]

Thank you, Ella! I tried to do a search for a discussion like this and couldn't find it. ( I'm terrible at navigating the "inter-web" ). This one looks ... Lively ... And informative. Im sure my answer lies buried somewhere within.
-Quix

[billy]

i just read my last post and it reads like i was actually pissed.

[Quixilated]

Even though Dale answered my question in the second post, couldn't resist reading the whole thing. Full of gems it was. I can't believe "pigist" didn't enter the vernacular, or does that make me pigist to wish it? I realized what was throwing me was that the oft inverted classical poetry of yore is decked with laurels, so where then lies the harm? But I will not kowtow to the Normans. Don't ask me why. It could have something to do with Robin Hood or Ivanhoe. Or maybe it's some rebelious Saxon gene handed down from the ancestors. Does that make me "swineist"? Anyway, thanks again Ella for dredging this up, it answered the question, then answered it from every other possible angle as well as a few that might not even exist. I am sated and will not be intentionally inverting in the near future.
-Quix

[milo]

Even though Dale answered my question in the second post, couldn't resist reading the whole thing.  Full of gems it was.    I can't believe "pigist" didn't enter the vernacular, or does that make me pigist to wish it?  I realized what was throwing me was that the oft inverted classical poetry of yore is decked with laurels, so where then lies the harm?  But I will not kowtow to the Normans.  Don't ask me why.  It could have something to do with Robin Hood or Ivanhoe.  Or maybe it's some rebelious Saxon gene handed down from the ancestors.  Does that make me "swineist"?  Anyway, thanks again Ella for dredging this up, it answered the question, then answered it from every other possible angle as well as a few that might not even exist.  I am sated and will not be intentionally inverting in the near future.  
-Quix

Some of these old threads are great fun to read - half for the educational value but also half for the subtle internet warfare.

[ellajam]

It makes one understand why "poets" work so hard to whittle away each piece down to its essence, in its normal state the brain is quite the whirlwind. I'll have to find that Line Length thread for quix. It got butchered with True's deletions but, milo, you were so good at quoting along the way I think last time I read it it still held up.

[milo]

It makes one understand why "poets" work so hard to whittle away each piece down to its essence, in its normal state the brain is quite the whirlwind. I'll have to find that Line Length thread for quix. It got butchered with True's deletions but, milo, you were so good at quoting along the way I think last time I read it it still held up.

the best threads on the site you either have to hunt for or you just stumble across them randomly but they are worth it.

[abu nuwas]

It makes one understand why "poets" work so hard to whittle away each piece down to its essence, in its normal state the brain is quite the whirlwind. I'll have to find that Line Length thread for quix. It got butchered with True's deletions but, milo, you were so good at quoting along the way I think last time I read it it still held up.

I see I made the odd contribution, and as I read through, wondered why I had ever let some stuff pass. Milo's version of 'non sequitur' - petty to point out. Dale's initial talk about the origins of English, and the poets trying to impress 'the French Court' , well, perhaps one should have clarified that yes, of course Old English was Germanic, and inclined to have the verb at the end, doing this in verse or the curious kind of Wisdom Literature, was quite natural:

Ræd sceal mon secgan, rune writan, leoþ gesingan, lofes gearnian.

One should give counsel, write secrets, sing songs, earn praise.

The origin elaborated by Dale, suggests to me simply that inversion is in the DNA of the language. How else would it make its way onto the Hallmark cards so loved by the public, and sniffed at by the Ivorians from their towers above?


And, how could I have left Milo crying in the wilderness, for just one line --just one line, written in the last 100 years by a published poet?  Not good or bad -- just published. Since 1915 (was that the year inversion's permit ran out? I had wondered about that one). If I were going to respond now, a poem written by Edith Sitwell might come to mind. It was about the Blitz, in 1940. She was a nutty old girl, but fifteen years later, I had to study the poem in school. It is called - don't laugh - 'Still falls the Rain' . I suppose more moving would be ''Still pissing down, ffs''

But (conjunction, albeit disjunctive!) I have not taken these months to return, hurdling all the Pig's barriers, merely to rake up old embers; far from it!  I shall join you in a minimalist mode, whittling away all the adornments I once thought beautiful, till nothing remains, and I shall discard all the possessions I previously thought lovely, and live in a pure white minimalist globe. It may not make me happy, in the bourgeois sense of the word, but by fuck it'll be meaningful when people come. If they ever do.   

    

[ellajam]

Hi, abu.

Whittling away does not leave no adornment, there's plenty of room for beautiful language. It's not that nothing is left, it's just finely focused.

I love that your example uses "still", I've fought for that word myself here, it has a wonderful turn to it, and is full of secrets and songs.

[abu nuwas]

Hi, abu.

Whittling away does not leave no adornment, there's plenty of room for beautiful language. It's not that nothing is left, it's just finely focused.

I love that your example uses "still", I've fought for that word myself here, it has a wonderful turn to it, and is full of secrets and songs.

Hi,

You mean 'still' is no longer in common usage in the US?

I admire laconic speech -- I just can't do it. As to whittling, I am a bit surprised that the wheel has not turned by now. Same with 'installations' -- been going on forever, yet people still dream up whacky 'new' things. My Sis had an exhibition in the Summer, with other people, which she almost immediately regretted. There were her beautiful paintings, much indifferent stuff, and, ffs, a deck-chair, arranged with some sun-glasses. Like, wow! The guy had the effrontery to put a price of £5000-00 on it. 

I suppose the whittlers will whittle and preach whittling, and the adorners will do the same, mutatis mutandis.  

[ellajam]

Hi, abu.

Whittling away does not leave no adornment, there's plenty of room for beautiful language. It's not that nothing is left, it's just finely focused.

I love that your example uses "still", I've fought for that word myself here, it has a wonderful turn to it, and is full of secrets and songs.

Hi,

You mean 'still' is no longer in common usage in the US?

I admire laconic speech -- I just can't do it. As to whittling, I am a bit surprised that the wheel has not turned by now. Same with 'installations' -- been going on forever, yet people still dream up whacky 'new' things. My Sis had an exhibition in the Summer, with other people, which she almost immediately regretted. There were her beautiful paintings, much indifferent stuff, and, ffs, a deck-chair, arranged with some sun-glasses. Like, wow! The guy had the effrontery to put a price of £5000-00 on it. 

I suppose the whittlers will whittle and preach whittling, and the adorners will do the same, mutatis mutandis.  

The US has nothing to do with it, I've been urged by members worldwide to remove the mighty Still. I've left it in place, I've twisted and tortured it but, still, my love for it is not diminished.

[rayheinrich]

Such energy this thread has!
I so love reading a thread unknown to me.

Some inversions it reminded me of were the interrogatives.
They wouldn't stop at making it into accepted syntax,
they wouldn't stop until they weren't inversions anymore:

"George is going to wash the unicorn."

"Is George going to wash the unicorn?"

[milo]

And, how could I have left Milo crying in the wilderness, for just one line --just one line, written in the last 100 years by a published poet?  Not good or bad -- just published. Since 1915 (was that the year inversion's permit ran out? I had wondered about that one). If I were going to respond now, a poem written by Edith Sitwell might come to mind. It was about the Blitz, in 1940. She was a nutty old girl, but fifteen years later, I had to study the poem in school. It is called - don't laugh - 'Still falls the Rain' . I suppose more moving would be ''Still pissing down, ffs''


 

There have actually been thousands of poems published in the last 100 years with inversions - my quest wasn't to suggest there weren't.  Step 2, after the poem was produced, should have been a nifty analysis of what was accomplished through the use of inversion that qualified its use.

Alas, no one took up the gauntlet.

[abu nuwas]

And, how could I have left Milo crying in the wilderness, for just one line --just one line, written in the last 100 years by a published poet?  Not good or bad -- just published. Since 1915 (was that the year inversion's permit ran out? I had wondered about that one). If I were going to respond now, a poem written by Edith Sitwell might come to mind. It was about the Blitz, in 1940. She was a nutty old girl, but fifteen years later, I had to study the poem in school. It is called - don't laugh - 'Still falls the Rain' . I suppose more moving would be ''Still pissing down, ffs''


 

There have actually been thousands of poems published in the last 100 years with inversions - my quest wasn't to suggest there weren't.  Step 2, after the poem was produced, should have been a nifty analysis of what was accomplished through the use of inversion that qualified its use.

Alas, no one took up the gauntlet.

My friend, by giving a possible alternative for the title alone, I not only seized the gauntlet, but challenged anyone to produce their own, new, improved, version of Ms Sitwell's title alone -- the rest of the poem has plenty of inversions, too. I would concede that it was written in special times. Her natural liking for the archaic may have had a resonance which later generations, or foreigners, might miss. As for me having to show how valuable this device is -or that it is a device - I think that puts the burden of proof the wrong way about. If I like bananas, and you tell me I ought not to, the onus rests with you . Since the old saying about not be able to argue about taste remains as true as ever, that might be difficult.

Naturally, the last thing I want to do is to dredge all this up, old bean,  though I have a completely open mind.

Perhaps I shall actually post something.

---

Hi, abu.

Whittling away does not leave no adornment, there's plenty of room for beautiful language. It's not that nothing is left, it's just finely focused.

I love that your example uses "still", I've fought for that word myself here, it has a wonderful turn to it, and is full of secrets and songs.

Hi,

You mean 'still' is no longer in common usage in the US?

I admire laconic speech -- I just can't do it. As to whittling, I am a bit surprised that the wheel has not turned by now. Same with 'installations' -- been going on forever, yet people still dream up whacky 'new' things. My Sis had an exhibition in the Summer, with other people, which she almost immediately regretted. There were her beautiful paintings, much indifferent stuff, and, ffs, a deck-chair, arranged with some sun-glasses. Like, wow! The guy had the effrontery to put a price of £5000-00 on it. 

I suppose the whittlers will whittle and preach whittling, and the adorners will do the same, mutatis mutandis.  

The US has nothing to do with it, I've been urged by members worldwide to remove the mighty Still. I've left it in place, I've twisted and tortured it but, still, my love for it is not diminished.

But why Ella? Have the ignorant Creative Writing people got something round the wrong way again?  It's nuts.

[ellajam]

Nah, they have good reasons and sometimes they just think it would sound better without it, as if "still" is always just a space marker. No biggie, I've had one where I moved it out of inversion so I just got a kick out of your example.

[Leanne]

Don't listen to adverb haters, Ella. There are people in the world who would remove all modifiers, prepositions, conjunctions -- whatever their pet hate is, or whatever they can't use properly (as is more often the case).

Everything in moderation. If every line started with still then you'd be in trouble.

[billy]

still, some line do start with it

if it's a good line of poetry, then it's a good line of poetry. inversions like clcihe are often used without aforethought and as such leave the line of poetry that feels should be spoken by some little green big-eared thing with wrinkles..yes tom..... as always in most endeavours; if something works it works