The Icarus Hoax: When Absurdity Slipped Past the Gatekeepers

Trinity College’s Icarus magazine has long stood as a pillar within the Irish literary landscape. It is a journal that commands a certain hushed respect, having once cradled the early words of giants like Seamus Heaney and John Montague. For decades, it was assumed to be a fortress of artistic rigor, a place where only the sharpest metaphors and most disciplined stanzas could find a home.

That reputation, however, has recently faced a peculiar unraveling.

In a move reminiscent of the Sokal affair, writers from The Burkean decided to test the structural integrity of this literary gatekeeping. Their hypothesis was cynical but simple: if the poetry is terrible, but the politics are “correct,” will it print? They concocted a series of fictitious alter egos, designing them to tick every box of the modern diversity checklist, and submitted work that was intentionally, aggressively bad.

Edmund Burke, the namesake of the publication behind the literary hoax

The experiment was not about subtle incompetence; it was an exercise in “literary horrors.” The hoaxers sought to bypass quality control by overwhelming the editors with ideological signaling. They anticipated rejection for the poor craft, yet hoped the “diverse credentials” of their fake personas would blind the editorial board to the woeful writing.

The results were damning. The gatekeepers swung the doors wide open.

Among the pieces selected for the prestigious print edition were works that defied logic and taste. One accepted poem was an “erotic tribute” to Ebun Joseph, a piece likely designed to make the reader wince. Another, attributed to a persona named “Adaku Dyport-a-me,” was an anti-racist screed that devolved into pseudo-historical fantasy, claiming Ireland’s original inhabitants were a race of “black pygmies.”

That these submissions were not filtered out suggests a shift in the editorial lens. The focus appeared to move from the intrinsic merit of the line—the rhythm, the image, the truth of the human condition—to the identity of the author and the political utility of the message. The hoaxers at The Burkean viewed the acceptance of these poems as an “indictment” of the journal’s artistic integrity.

The incident leaves a lingering, uncomfortable silence in the room of contemporary poetry. It forces a confrontation with the reality that when ideological compliance becomes the primary metric for publication, the art itself—the actual craft of weaving language into meaning—risks becoming secondary to the performance of virtue. Icarus flew close to the sun of political fashion, and in doing so, seemingly melted the wax of its own standards.