To my ear, using several “of”s in a poem tends to
make the piece sound expectedly poetic.
I rip out “of”s out like stitches.
Like most poets, I have a standard answer when I’m asked why I choose to write: “I love language.”
It’s true, of course—the sounds and textures, even the history fascinates me. Words are my playthings. However, just as that one Lego doesn’t quite fit into the 10,000-piece build-your-own-orchid set, certain words can feel misplaced in my poems. Context plays a role—the meter or the subject matter can ignite or tamp down my irritation toward a “misfit.”
A linguistic frustration that haunts me decades into my poetry life is an ongoing fight with preposition usage. Some African languages don’t have prepositions and on certain days that would be a welcome break for this poet. The preposition “of” is perhaps my worthiest foe. To my ear, using several “of”s in a poem tends to make the piece sound expectedly poetic. The poet Cecilia Llompart Borges recently told me to invoke “of” repeatedly in a poem is a “cheat code” and that rings true to me at times. I rip out “of”s out like stitches.
Take this example: a “collection of birches” sounds lovely; it’s a phrase the reader doesn’t need to think too much about. The “of” smooths the image, and makes it sound like it belongs in a line of poetry. It’s almost too easily poetry, and that’s an unearned distinction for me. Outside of poetry, we might call what we see a “birch forest,” but perhaps that doesn’t sound special enough for a poem. A “birch collection” sounds like a hotel chain. If I try harder, I can arrive at “birch copse,” which I like a great deal. The two words are now fighting with each other sonically, shoved right against each other and creating conflict with their crunchy syllables. This image is perhaps less expectedly poetic than the original. The connotations are different. Robert Pinsky would say I’ve made the line more Germanic. It’s certainly toothier. There’s now a spondee, and like Hopkins, I’m the type of poet who wants you to hear my sound, so it suits.
readers are “meaning-making animals.”
If a poet drives home their own images with too much description,
or too many explainers, the audience isn’t allowed
to find their own significance
Of course, how can we talk about “of” without mentioning Pound’s cautionary tale regarding the “dim lands of peace”? His explanation as to why this is a poor poetic line aligns with something I talk to editing clients about: “the natural object is always the adequate symbol.” I read that as Pound advocating “show don’t tell,” and sometimes that old chestnut can prove valuable. Poetry readers are smart, and curious. A professor who introduced me to the New York School poets told me that readers are “meaning-making animals.” If a poet drives home their own images with too much description, or too many explainers, the audience isn’t allowed to find their own significance within a piece or to tap into the nuances that exist within a poem.
Kevin Prufer recently said on Jason Gray's Drunk as a Poet on Payday podcast that "a prepositional phrase never makes an interesting line of poetry," and that starting a line with a prepositional phrase can kill forward motion. And it’s true. Poetry is so momentum-driven when we consider the linear unit. I am a minimalist who writes short, verb-oriented poems, so I hyper focus on a poem’s movement. “Of” feels like a filler preventing me from getting to the immediacy I want. Poets who aim to crystallize moments or readily use noun-based lists may feel differently about prepositions, and sometimes I agree with them.
Truly, certain “of” constructions make great sound, particularly “of the” phrases, which create that “winding down a spiral staircase” anapest. I think about the end of Mark Strand’s “What to Think Of” here, which use these repeated and winding anapests to full effect:
Of the coral snakes;
Of the crimson birds
With emerald beaks;
Of the tons and tons of morpho butterflies
Filling the air
like the cold confetti of paradise.
One could say this poem is about situating the speaker in a fantasy that is frozen in time in some way, as “the cold confetti of paradise” floats to the ground. The preposition use goes to the poem’s purpose and thus it seems like a great fit of language to subject matter.
I usually allow myself one “of” per poem.
So, I bargain with “of.” If the preposition exists as part of a banger last line, I typically won’t touch it. Poets know how often great last lines come along—almost never. In that case, I’ll remove “of”s earlier in the poem, which is a great exercise not just because it removes unearned poetic sounds, but it also teaches me more about the poem—its rhythm, what sounds can be enriched, what clauses can be flipped or eliminated. I will usually allow myself one “of” per poem. It’s easy enough to edit one into a possessive, which seems like an underused construction in many lyric poems. In a poem I wrote a few years ago, “Against Seven Inning Doubleheaders and Runners on Second Base to Start Extra Innings in Major League Baseball,” I started with three “of” constructions and landed at one after rounds of revision. Here’s a first draft:
When the infielders were tired
they dropped their heads,
one after another, in plumes
of dust along the basepaths
and big innings occurred,
stroked singles followed
one another into the bright,
an infinity of batsmen moved
through their stations.
The sky turned from blue
to purple, then a glamour
of stars. Ballcaps became
curtains, the fielders sighed
and woke again, eyes
raised to the ready position.
The diamond, itself, a galaxy,
each team orbiting the other’s
symmetry, to play is a never ending.
First, I looked to see which one I wanted to save and “a glamour of stars” seemed like it would be the hardest one to rework to my satisfaction. I revised the other two out of the final poem (revisions in bold), published in Blackbird:
When the infielders were tired
they just dropped their heads,
one after another, in dust
plumes along the basepaths
and big innings occurred,
stroked singles followed
each other into the dusk,
infinite batsmen moved
through their stations.
The sky turned from purple
to velvet, then a glamour
of stars. Ballcaps became
curtains, the fielders sighed
and woke up again, eyes
raised into the ready position.
The diamond itself is a galaxy,
the teams orbiting one another.
Part of the bargain is
the never-ending.
I sense a sound and momentum boost in the revision. You’ll see that I couldn’t resist adding an “of the” construction to the last stanza, which badly needed restructuring for sound and sense (!). Thus, the give and take.
Poets are people who learn through words—
and we have to write it all out to figure out the target, but the reader
doesn’t need to hear all of that. This is why revision is necessary.
Abigail Cloud, Poetry Editor of Mid-American Review, declares herself a “preposition addict” and said to me recently, “My relationship to prepositions is akin to my relationship to dance choreography. Connective steps are important and can help the rhythm, but too many and you lose the thrust.” I am not an enthusiast on her level, but she gets at why so many prepositions appear in my first drafts. They are edited out once I find the rhythm and figure out what I’m trying to say. Poets are people who learn through words—and we have to write it all out to figure out the target, but the reader doesn’t need to hear all of that. This is why revision is necessary. Some connective tissue stays in a poem because it has to for the language to function at a sentence-level, or for sound purposes.
When I’m revising a manuscript, I’ll use free word cloud generators online to see what words I’m repeating. This method shows me what my favorite words are, but it also reveals my chronic offenders. I can figure out themes in the manuscript this way, and see what should be pruned. Maybe your sworn enemy isn’t “of”—maybe it’s “like,” “as,” or “in”! If so, my best tip is to feed long poems and manuscripts through a word cloud program. You’ll figure out what you lean on quickly, and decide if you’re happy with your choices.
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Sandra Marchetti is the 2023 winner of The Twin Bill Book Prize for Best Baseball Poetry Book of the Year. She is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, DIORAMA, forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin State University Press (2025), Aisle 228 (SFA Press, 2023), and Confluence (Sundress Publications, 2015). Sandy is also the author of four chapbooks of poetry and lyric essays. Her poetry and essays appear widely in Mid-American Review, Blackbird, Ecotone, Southwest Review, Subtropics, and elsewhere. She is Poetry Editor Emerita at River Styx. Sandy earned an MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry from George Mason University and now serves as the Assistant Director of Academic Support at Harper College in Chicagoland.