Failure™ Magazine

Philip Schultz: “Failure”

The Failure Interview.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Life

Why did you decide to title the book “failure”?
Very good friends and very good poets advised me not to. The arguments against it—and they were strong—were that I’d be pigeonholing it and that it would be a downer. I finally realized that in all honesty it was the subject of the book. And it was the only subject; everything else paled in comparison. [Plus], my wife thought it was a great title and I trust her judgment.

Have you gotten any feedback from your audience about the title … or the book itself?
I’m getting a response that’s different from any I’ve gotten before. There’s a rawness to it—a directness. The title poem came out three weeks ago in Slate and there was a discussion about it [on Slate‘s message board]. I didn’t look at it myself, for all kinds of reasons, but apparently it was very controversial and there were very strong opinions [on both sides]. Some of the discussion had to do with whether a son was calling his father a failure or whether the son was celebrating or defending his father. So apparently the poem hit a nerve. This went on for at least a week or so with people commenting and commenting on the comments.

Is there a poem in the book that you struggled with more than any other?
I’ve always worked hard on my poetry. And I worked particularly hard on this book. I didn’t fall on some of the devices I’ve used in the past. I wanted it to be crystal clear and direct. The long poem [“The Wandering Wingless”] was difficult. I can’t even guess how many drafts there were.

But “Specimen” was really hard to finish. It came right after the title poem and “The One Truth.” I tell the story of seeing my father choke a man who stole cigarettes out of one of his vending machines. It’s an image I’ve carried with me ever since I was a young boy.

Speaking of your father, do people from different generations view failure differently?
My father was literally pushed by his mother to succeed. It was, “Go out there and conquer.” He was driven, and he had four brothers and they were all driven. They all died very young (in their fifties) of heart attacks. So it was a generational thing where you had to climb up the ladder. My father pushed himself and pushed himself and failed continually throughout his life. Every business he ever started failed. [For his generation] failure was this great American taboo. It was the one thing you couldn’t do. It wasn’t allowed. And yet all these people were doing it.

What value can be derived from failure?
Well, I think you appreciate that success isn’t a finish line. In my life my family is everything. My father couldn’t enjoy what he had because it was always an aspect of a measuring stick that wasn’t anywhere near what he wanted. And I think that kind of philosophy—that American sense of measuring things—is that you never have enough. It’s all win or lose.

In my own life, I wanted to be a novelist. For the longest time being a poet—even though I was good at it and successful at it—wasn’t what I thought I should be. But I couldn’t be happier now.

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