Piece: John Poch's, "Icarus, Rejected"
Strategy: Form and Structure
Poch’s piece, “Icarus Rejected,” is serves as a masterpiece of linguistics in terms of shape, rhyme, rhythm, recursivity, repetition, and layers of meaning. It alludes to the strategy discussed in chapter eight of our "Writing Poetry" text: 'Form and Structure.'
The text mentions how poets utilize the musicality of language and take advantage of the visual eye in order to structure and mold their works. This formation includes the way the piece looks on a page; the way it sounds when it is spoken; the way a reader breathes between stanzas and lines; rhyme schemes; and more. Icarus Rejected relates an instance where the legendary tragic figure of Greek mythology experiences an epic fail. This failure alludes not only to the story of Icarus itself, but also his rejection as a poet submitting a manuscript. Ironically, the instances of italics that represent how the lines that hindered Icarus’s poetry serve to enhance Poch’s words. He specifically chooses these lines to complete a juxtaposition of words and phrases, as well as a series of enjambments: “Stay off the drugs. None of your beeswaz. Nope. / and more: A dead baby in a baptism gown” (13-14). Here, line fourteen begins with a lower case “and,” indicating a continuation of the previous line even though it ends with a period. This is one of the enjambments that are deliberately structured to emphasize the pause of breath and breakage within the poem.
When observing the poem, the reader may be drawn in by the reoccurring instances of the sounds “ope,” and “own.” These rhymes help to construct the poems musicality. The rhyme scheme of the poem is Villanelle, which consists of five “ABA” tercets, and one “ABAA” quatrain. It is clear that Poch does not reflect a free-handed poem that does not follow any rules. He is particular with selecting the Rhyme scheme and rhyming sounds that help give his poem a type of musical identification.
Finally, in reference to the layer of meaning behind the poem, Poch places strong significance on the line “All feathers and down, R.I.P., you dope.” This verse appears in the first, third, fifth and sixth stanzas. One could relate this to the meaning of “down feathers,” which are layer of fine feathers just under the tougher exterior of feathers. Very young birds are covered only in down feathers, and the Icarus serves as the figure of a very young boy. Also, down feathers are good in items such as beddings, pillows, and sleeping bags. Poch references “pillows” in stanzas one and five, which allude to the connection that down feathers have with pillows. Finally, there is the fact that the story of Icarus reflects how the wax between his feathers melted when he was too close to the sun, and how he fell to his death to “R.I.P.” The death of this myth correlates to the death of his manuscript in this Poch’s piece because Icarus is writing juvenile lines of poetry in his work. The italics show that Icarus appears to rely on tired tropes, or repetitive phrases heard over and over again to construct his pieces…there is no originality to his work: “Stay off the drugs. None of your beeswax. A dead baby in a baptism gown” (10-11). These lines really do not push for the manipulated language or contrasting imagery that makes advanced poetry so unique. Because of this, Icarus is rejected both in his poetry and in his myth.
The layers of meaning, the recursivity, the sound, pauses, rhyme schemes, and overall structure of this poem increases the complexity of the work as a whole. In breaking it down to the various essential elements, one can see how tedious Poch was in portraying the theme of ‘Icarus, Rejected’ through a carefully structured and detailed format of the work as a whole. This has to be my favorite piece so far this semester, and I believe it serves as a just representation of the form and structure strategy discussed in our text.
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