inversions in poetry

[abu nuwas]

Inversion and cliche, unlike poetic devices are just sloppy writing. Old poems inverted because the diction at the time was different. You may as well write in "thee"'s and "thous"'s and call it a poetic tool. Inversion is used almost exclusively when writer is attempting to use rhyme or meter but lacks the tools or finesse to do it properly so it inevitably sounds forced. Better not to invert until you learn to use rhyme and meter properly.

If you "think it sounds better" when it is inverted, there is a chance you just need to read more poetry.

It seems that that you and Billy both find it difficult to sustain your argument without harnessing inversion with cliché. Your first sentence is purely arbitrary, an assertion with no support. Your third sentence betrays an understandable ignorance: it may be that, beyond the Quakers, ''thee'' is finished in N America, but it lives in the north of England. The Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys both use them, so yes, I might too, and have, to be mocked in just the same fashion.

Certainly inversion makes it more probable that a suitable rhyme will be available, and certainly, it can help with meter. So what? Most of us lack the skills tools and what-have-you, to write perfectly. But having made your case with such force and logic, you then decide, that when one has learnt how to use rhyme/meter ''properly'' -- then, it is OK to invert! Whatever happened to the sloppy writing? Tsk, tsk.

Poetic devices -- good when the fashion says so, bad when fashion changes. In your eyes, fashion no longer approves inversion, yet, although equally unusual in speech, alliteration and a hundred other tricks get off the hook. Who cares that poets down the ages have used archaistic language? Who cares that for the general population, as with peoples of other cultures to-day, and long-gone, expects poetry to be like that. You sneer at me, you sneer at them. Why is poetry no longer popular? Because those who do it, do it for their own little clique, in exactly the same way that modern ''classical'' music has become the preserve of a self-congratulating coterie.

I think you inadvertently left out some words at the end of your final, clinching, paragraph. Surely you mean that I should read more poetry of the sort of which you approve? It seems that the battle has been lost for poor Ella -- she must heed the dead hand of close reading forever. How far does that go back? A hundred years?

Have a nice day now!