That doesn't sound normal, so now what?

#1: The man is sad.

OR

#2: Sad is the man.

Same words, different order. Which one sounds more natural? Correct, gentle reader, #1 is the winner. Man seems to be the natural subject of this sentence; sad, therefore, stands as the predicate adjective modifying the man. The man is sad. Check. #2 sounds, well, funny. Stilted. Not normal. Again, I get it. It sounds funny because the syntax is out of whack. Done and done. Well, now what?

Well, nothing, if you are the writer and your mission is to revise that sentence for clarity. I would strongly advice using #1 and moving on.

What if you are the reader/analyzer? What then?

In our most recent timed write covering Li-Young Lee's poem "A Story," the opening line reads:

Sad is the man who is asked for a story / and can't come up with one.

So there is more to it than the first four words. Still, I get it. My job is not to rearrange the word order but to observe it and analyze it. What I observe is that the syntax is funny. Or, more specifically, the syntax is inverted. More specifically still, the noun and the adjective are inverted. And so is the emphasis. Sad gains prominence because Lee leads with it. Sad is a word I need to pay attention to, with all of its denotative and connotative meaning. More on that in a second.

Actually, not more. Let's stop right here. We have noticed that the syntax is worth analyzing. This is a huge step forward. Also, we have recognized the function of inverting the syntax, which in this case is to draw attention to the word sad. Another huge step forward.

Where do we go from here? We read the rest of the poem, looking to build connotative significance from the context. A tall order? Maybe. But very doable, because we nailed the first steps.