William Carlos Williams was an Imagist, that is he ascribed to the view that poetry should be simplified, stripped of Victorian Romanticism and focus instead on simple visual imagery. The movement grew up in USA and England, and contemporaries who followed this view included Ezra Pound and T E Hulme.

This poem is a reaction to Pieter Bruegel’s, Landscape with fall of Icarus

It depicts the Greek myth of Icarus, but is set in the time of the artist. Icarus, son of Daedalus, wanted to escape from imprisonment and used the wax wings that his father had made for him. He was warned not to fly too close to the sun as the wax would melt. But he did so, the wings were destroyed and he fell to the see and drowned.

The myth is often quoted as a metaphor for any person who over-reaches themself; for arrogance and — to use the Greek term — hubris.

As in the painting, the poem describes the landscape, beginning with a mood of happiness until it is clear that Icarus will die. The depressing reality then comes to the fore. Thematically, the poem highlights the human indifference to the troubles of others. In the painting a farmer ploughs his land while a terrible scene plays out in clear view. Pain and tragedy often go unnoticed.

Structure
This is a narrative poem in free verse, with seven three-lined stanzas, with lines of uneven length. There is no rhyme scheme, no punctuation. The free flow is enhanced by the enjambed line endings.

Language and Imagery
The matter-of-fact language is in ironic contrast to the tragic death of the boy. The tone is cool and detached, the tragedy deepened by the apparant indifference of the farmer, conveyed by the understated language

The only spoken word piece on Soviet Kitsch, it’s sandwiched between Sailor Song and Your Honor.

Sometimes titled “ * * * ”

This ode to a dead relationship was released on a double A-side with “Your Honor”.

“Now” is the first single off Paramore’s self-titled album. The single was meant to announce the band’s return with authority. After the breakup and all of the time off, Hayley, Jeremy and Taylor were back and better than ever.

Hayley said in an interview with Fuse that

the message behind it is really that there’s all this struggle going on, and all this pain and bitterness and this violent cycle that keeps going on, and at some point you have to stop the cycle.

She has also said on multiple occasions that Now is about moving forward and taking control of whatever is next, even if it’s not always clear what that is.

She entered the process of creating the self-titled album not intending to talk about a lot of that “pain and bitterness”, but those feelings started pouring out when she heard Taylor York’s riff for the song.

In an interview with Radio 104.5, she said:

That was one of the first songs we wrote that I felt like a lot of things I needed to say that might have been bottled up sort of came out. I felt like I hadn’t been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel before."

The song renewed Hayley’s hope for the band, and she has said that she wants listeners to be able to find that sense of hope in Now. Although the song sounds angry and violent on the surface, there are undertones of hope, as is the case on most Paramore songs.

That a song like this would make it onto the album is no surprise. When Hayley was brainstorming material for a new album back before the band breakup in 2010, she told Rock Sound"

I want to write about never knowing what’s next; the curiosity and the lust to know but the comfort and the peace of never actually having to and never really getting to. I like the mystery, I like that the path is illuminated only as we are on it. I don’t want to write another angry record, but at the same time that’s where I get a lot of frustrations out so I can be a positive person. It’s going to be real interesting for me lyrically.