Need an explanation for this poem for an English essay.?

Question

ICARUS DESCENDING

I ride my bicycle to work, leaving earlier than usual
so i can go slow. everything looks normal,
the air is fresh, the copper
beech trees and the ginkgoes
lush in their end-of-summer foliage,
the street clean from last night's rain.
The men from Public Works
have been here lately and patched a few holes.
Somebody must have complained,
but it wasnt me. The only blemish
on my contentment is the strange sensation
that somebody very like me is falling through the air
right now, close behind me,
from a great height falling- having leapt, or been pushed
-
but anyhow no longer cradling his despair,
making light of it, arms outstretched,
though his corduroy sleeves cannot undulate
like feathered wings in figure eights
and he is dropping. How foolish to try
to see him. I don't even twist to look,
the way a dream just after you have woken
has no words for you.

Answer 1

It doesn't ring any bells. Did you write it?

If you did, you are offered a rare opportunity to explain your own work, but it is also an unnecessary opportunity because you wrote it, let others decide what they think it means.

You can read volume after volume of others' opinions of poetry, but never can you be quite sure of what the poet really intended.

If your teacher assigned this to you, ask him or her to tell you what he/she thinks it means. Then say nothing and explain that writers never get opportunities to defend their work once it is out there.

If your teacher or classmate wrote it, or it came from a book I am not aware of, think about the poem, and write what you think the poem is about or the message it is trying to convey. If you can defend your reasoning, you are correct. If you cannot explain your ideas or thoughts to your teacher or class, you fail the exercise.

Get it? I hope this helped.

Answer 2

icarus flew too close to the sun.
the author is content - fresh air, smooth road, clean world etc.
the poem seems to be like a premonition that we all fly too close to the sun - "somebody very like me" is falliing right now etc. -
but at the same time - he is no longer cradling his despair -
so -we don't know what will happen and it is foolish to try to see - or twist to look - to look towards our fall may have no words for us - and anyway - we can make light of it, meet it with arms outstretched. not so much a sense of futility as a sense that things change, and we know that they change, and we may not like the changes but we can meet them with open arms - and still enjoy the contentment of a moment.

Answer 3

Story of Icarus
The following is an account of the Fall of Icarus as told by Thomas Bulfinch: Icarus was imprisoned, with his father, in a tower on Crete, by the king Minos. Daedalus contrived to make his escape from the prison he was in, but could not leave the island by sea, as the king kept strict watch on all the vessels, and permitted none to sail without being carefully searched. "Minos may control the land and sea," said Daedalus, "but not the regions of the air. I will try that way." So he set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He wrought feathers together beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blown away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers, by his play impeding his father in his labors.

By then at last the work was done, the artist, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward and hung suspended, poising himself on the beaten air. He next equipped his son in the same manner, and taught him how to fly, as a bird tempts her young ones from the lofty nest into the air. When all was prepared for flight, he said, "Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them. Keep near me and you will be safe." While he gave him these instructions and fitted the wings to his shoulders, the face of the father was wet with tears, and his hands trembled. He kissed the boy, not knowing that it was for the last time. Then rising on his wings he flew off, encouraging him to follow, and looked back from his own flight to see how his son managed his wings. As they flew the ploughman stopped his work to gaze, and the shepherd leaned on his staff and watched them, astonished at the sight, and thinking they were gods who could thus cleave the air.

They passed Samos and Delos on the left and Lebynthos on the right, then the boy, exulting in his career, began to leave the guidance of his companion and soar upward as if to reach heaven. The nearness of the blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together, and they came off. He fluttered with his arms, but no feathers remained to hold the air. While his mouth uttered cries to his father, it was submerged in the blue waters of the sea, which thenceforth was called by his name. His father cried, "Icarus, Icarus, where are you?" At last he saw the feathers floating on the water, and bitterly lamenting his own arts, he buried the body and called the land Icaria in memory of his child. Daedalus arrived safe in Sicily, where he built a temple to Apollo, and hung up his wings, an offering to the god.

Take the above story and the poem and think of what the author was trying to say.

My first impression was of the futile effort of things we do in life; we go to work, we patch the holes in the road, and there will be more holes later to fill. Life is futile, and if we aspire to do better than our position we will crash and burn.

Answer 4

wow, that's beautiful. i think you're on your own though.