[A. E. Stallings]

There is a lot of emphasis on these boards on putting sentences into verse more or less exactly as they would be spoken. "Would you actually say that?" is the cornerstone of much criticism. Yes, we do get newbies who want to write in archaisms that would have seemed fusty to Pope, and no one wants to see syntax wrenched around clumsily for the sake of a jingly rime. Still, I sometimes think the "plain style" is taken too far.

Inversions are not without their pleasures or purposes. I thought we might share some examples we found pleasing and effective.

I know I have brought up Larkin's "At Grass" at least a couple of times--it is among my favorite poems--but I do find the closing stanzas exquisite. Here is the last sentence:

Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies:
Only the groom, and the groom's boy,
With bridles in the evening come.


I love how the verb is held off to the very end of the poem, almost as if it were a Latin sentence. Yet this does not feel particularly stiff or artificial. There is something about the groom and the groom's boy that give us an inkling of death--as if they were mythological figures almost. And even though "come" goes with the groom and the groom's boy, somehow situating it next to "evening" also feels sad. And by holding off the verb until the very end it is as if the horses are staying out in the field until the last possible moment, when they are led off into the night. There is also something rather somber in its slight off-rhyme with home. And yet that the last word is "come" instead of say, "go" or "leave" or something, is also gentle, and welcoming. Well, I just think it is a marvellous effect and wonder if others cherish similar moments in poems.