Rhetorical Appropriation

There's a trick you can use in poetry or prose that's all around us, but I don't know what it's called, so I'm going to name it: Appropriation.  It's when you take a word or phrase that's already out there, and repurpose it in your own work.  Kacey Musgraves does this in pretty much every song: 'You and your high horse', 'You're my velvet Elvis', and my personal favorite, 'You can have your space, cowboy'.  Sometimes it's overt, and sometimes it's sneaky.

And often it's punny.  If I were writing an expose on Richard Finch, co-founder of KC and the Sunshine Band, I could title it 'A Bird in the Band', because his last name is finch and it sounds like 'a bird in the hand'.  But I digress ...

As I was driving to an inspection this morning, I was thinking about appropriation, and I made up this poem, and I thought it would be fun to dissect it:

He was the one who got away.

But don't cry, baby, don't cry.

You know he never meant to stay.

'Cuz butterflies just flutter by.

First, there's some of the usual culprits:

Rhyming: Away and stay, cry and by.

Alliteration: was and one, he and who, meant and to and stay, know and never.

Assonance: but and 'cuz and was and one, never and meant.

Then there's a diacope, which is a word sandwich: don't cry, baby, don't cry.

And finally, appropriation.  There are three here.  The one in the first line, 'the one who got away', is just using a familiar line.  The one in the last line, 'butterflies just flutter by', is more fun, because it's taking a familiar kids' rhyme and imbuing it with new meaning, something like 'beautiful people are flaky and don't stay'.  The third one is the sneaky one: cry, baby.  It's taking the word crybaby and breaking it in two, so that the meaning shifts, but it's still there.  I think it's fun that the sentence says 'don't cry', but the word 'crybaby' is right there, kind of accusatory.

A couple of other interesting notes: 

 - I came up with the second line first, and built the rest around it.

 - I went back and forth between using 'he' or 'she', but settled on 'he' because it gave me one more alliteration.

 - The third line was originally something like 'You know he had to go away'.  I was trying to think of another appropriation, so there'd be one on each line, but when I came up with 'he never meant to stay', I liked the emotional punch and that it infers that she should have known better.

 - You may also notice that the first three lines have the same rhythm and the fourth one doesn't.  That's on purpose.  I feel it gives it a little kick.  Your're reading something that's emotionally upsetting and the rhythm falters at the same time.  There's a similar trick in movies where they'll jump to an angle that doesn't quite feel right at the same time that they want you to feel like something is wrong or painful.

So there you have it.  Anatomy of a poem I made up in my head while driving.  Hope you like it.