Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s Apocalyptic Swing focuses on themes of religion, fighting, sex, and music. Many of her poems use repetition of diction and sound to highlight these themes. Calvocoressi also focuses on violence, especially in regards to boxing, such as in “Glass Jaw Sonnet,” which models the moves in a fight through sentence structure.
Several of Calvocoressi’s poems use the repetition of diction and sounds to emphasize her theme of music. For example, in her first poem, “Acknowledgement, 1964,” she says “All muscle/and heart, sweating, sweating, no more stupid melody/holding you back. Just the bass line, just the gas line/hissing and your foot on the pedal” (4). By repeating sweating and Just the…, she echoes the rhythm of music. She further alludes to this idea by using the musical diction of melody and bass line. Calvocoressi also uses assonance and consonance to highlight the musicality of this passage, specifically with the s’s, a’s, and u’s in words like stupid, just, bass, gas, and hissing.
Although she uses this diction to emphasize music, she creates a contradiction in these lines. She describes how there is no more stupid melody holding you back; however, the very slows you down, literally preventing you from reading the lines more quickly. She emphasizes this contradiction in the following stanza when she states how “You could have gotten away…Perhaps you passed/by them. You could have passed me by and saved yourself/the whole mess” (5). This highlights how you, who she directly addresses, could have quickly read past those lines.
Calvocoressi also uses sentence structure to add to the theme of fighting in her poem “Glass Jaw Sonnet.” In this poem, she writes short, staccato sentences, often using only nouns and adjectives, such as with the lines “Head/Strong. Sweet spot. Gut Shot. Back away. Meat hooks./Lazy eye, on the chin, stink eye, reed thin” (25). Glass jaw, an allusion to a boxer’s jaw which is mentioned in the title and the first line of the poem, sets the tone of a boxing match for the rest of the poem. Calvocoressi furthers this tone with the clipped sentences.
Her use of rhyme, such as with sweet spot, gut shot mimics the rhythm of how a fight might occur. This fighting tone is also emphasized by her use of diction in descriptions like back away, eye of the tiger, and heavy handed. By having the poem actually imitate the fast-paced rhythm and sounds of a fight, Calvocoressi puts the reader in the minds of the boxers, something she is able to do with minimal use of pronouns. In fact, the only use of any pronoun is the possessive pronoun my, which doesn’t show up until the last sentence of the poem.
Several of Calvocoressi’s poems use the repetition of diction and sounds to emphasize her theme of music. For example, in her first poem, “Acknowledgement, 1964,” she says “All muscle/and heart, sweating, sweating, no more stupid melody/holding you back. Just the bass line, just the gas line/hissing and your foot on the pedal” (4). By repeating sweating and Just the…, she echoes the rhythm of music. She further alludes to this idea by using the musical diction of melody and bass line. Calvocoressi also uses assonance and consonance to highlight the musicality of this passage, specifically with the s’s, a’s, and u’s in words like stupid, just, bass, gas, and hissing.
Although she uses this diction to emphasize music, she creates a contradiction in these lines. She describes how there is no more stupid melody holding you back; however, the very slows you down, literally preventing you from reading the lines more quickly. She emphasizes this contradiction in the following stanza when she states how “You could have gotten away…Perhaps you passed/by them. You could have passed me by and saved yourself/the whole mess” (5). This highlights how you, who she directly addresses, could have quickly read past those lines.
Calvocoressi also uses sentence structure to add to the theme of fighting in her poem “Glass Jaw Sonnet.” In this poem, she writes short, staccato sentences, often using only nouns and adjectives, such as with the lines “Head/Strong. Sweet spot. Gut Shot. Back away. Meat hooks./Lazy eye, on the chin, stink eye, reed thin” (25). Glass jaw, an allusion to a boxer’s jaw which is mentioned in the title and the first line of the poem, sets the tone of a boxing match for the rest of the poem. Calvocoressi furthers this tone with the clipped sentences.
Her use of rhyme, such as with sweet spot, gut shot mimics the rhythm of how a fight might occur. This fighting tone is also emphasized by her use of diction in descriptions like back away, eye of the tiger, and heavy handed. By having the poem actually imitate the fast-paced rhythm and sounds of a fight, Calvocoressi puts the reader in the minds of the boxers, something she is able to do with minimal use of pronouns. In fact, the only use of any pronoun is the possessive pronoun my, which doesn’t show up until the last sentence of the poem.