Here is my latest 9th contribution to the poetry course. It is provisionally titled “Pastoral (with a doubt in the middle)”
I spent hours yesterday debating with myself whether to use the word ‘on’ or ‘off’ in the line “to read the names on old graves.” I bother about such things, not because I wish to conform to certain standards of form or propriety. but because I want to be true to what the stuff I write about actually means.
“To read the names off old graves” would appear, on a first reading, obviously to be more aesthetically pleasing, with its f/v alliteration . I instead first opted for “on” not wishing to give the impression of reading off data in a mechanistic fashion and interested by the idea of reading being as proactive a process as writing, the ‘on’ hovering ambiguously between verb and object. I then went back to “off” interested in the use of this particle in phrasal verbs such as ‘wearing off’. Finally, I returned to ‘on,’ imagining it to be more pregnant with the ambiguities I intended and the subject matter deserved. But I am still not satisfied and even thinking of hedging my bets with a vulgar yet honest and faintly jocular ‘off and on’
Maybe I should crowdsource the decision.
Which of the following do you think fits best in my poem?
- On
- Off
- On and off
- None of the above (please specify an alternative)
This strategy worked well for choosing the frames of my eyeglasses; maybe it will work for the always tricky choice of prepositions.
Pastoral (with a doubt in the middle)
The old lane
a small car can just squeeze down
between hawthorn hedges,
and stop occasionally,
as we leap out,
like bank robbers,
to pluck blackberries
from the hedgerows,
for crumble, jam and the deep-freezer,
for free
leads to the village churchyard
I wander round in a long dark coat
trying
to read the names on/off (?) old graves.
*
Zig-zags of ancient paths
cross fields of cows,
where we can picnic on apricots,
warily under their watching eyes.
*
Cattle are called
to water,
and shelter
as church-bells ring at dusk
and we skip off to the red-brick house
that once was home.
*
The shepherd is a ghost
singing to his lost flock
as night falls.
The chocolate factory chimney
belches out sweet-smelling smoke
over this parceled and divided land.
Poetry, Politics and Language 
Nice one! I can see your hardwork in this. Well for me ‘on’ will do but this poem is yours, feel free to use your form!
Would you try “in” ? Would that change what you are saying? Brings reality to the dead, holds memory. As this other comment said – your poem, and a good one.
‘In’ would certainly be an interesting choice, raising all sorts of new issues. But it is too far from my original intentions. I am, I must confess a little obsessed by prepositions and phrasal verbs. One of my earliest teenage poems (now. probably thankfully, lost) contained the line “I dream of a language that consists of prepositions only.” Thank you again for your interest in my work.