A driven immigrant father, an old poet, Isaac Babel in the author’s dreams—Philip Schultz gives voice to failures in poems that are direct and wry. He evokes other lives, too—family, beaches, dogs, the pleasures of marriage, New York City in the 1970s, "when nobody got up before noon, wore a suit/or joined anything"—and a mind struggling with revolutions both interior and exterior. Failure is a superb new collection from one of America’s great poets.One called him a nobody.No, I said, he was a failure.You can’t remembera nobody’s name, that’s whythey’re called nobodies.Failures are unforgettable.—from "FAILURE"
Failure
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Browse the best books of summer including blockbusters, beach reads, and editors' picks in our Summer Reading Store. |
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The careful, compassionate sixth outing from Schultz (Living in the Past) reverses the plot many poetry books imply. Rather than show an emotional problem (in the first poems) followed by its gradual solution, Schultz begins with warm, even heartwarming, short depictions of love, marriage, fatherhood, and mourning, in which even the elegies find reasons to love life. Schultz addresses the deceased poet David Ignatow: "I didn't go/ to your funeral, but, late at night, I/ bathe in the beautiful ashes of your words." As a reader moves through the volume, and especially in "The Wandering Wingless"- the sequence whose 58 segments and 54 pages conclude the book\-Schultz's gladness gives way to regret and grim fear. Devoted (like several of Schultz's short poems) to the virtues of dogs and of dog-ownership, and to the horrors of September 11, "Wingless" meanders through the poet's own depression and his young adult life before settling on his continuing grief for his unstable, suicidal father. "Why/ did Dad own, believe in,/ admit to, understand/ and love nothing?" It is a question no poet could answer, though Schultz sounds brave, and invites sympathy, as he tries. The clear, even flat, free verse suggests Philip Booth, though Schultz's Jewish immigrant heritage, and his attachment to New York City, place him far from Booth's usual rural terrain. Few readers will find his language especially varied or inventive; many, however, could see their own travails in his plainly framed, consistently articulated sorrows and joys.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR FAILURE
"Philip Schultz’s language reminds me of such modern masters as Isaac Rosenberg and Hart Crane. It’s one thing I’ve always admired in his poetry; that and a heartbreaking tenderness that goes beyond mere pity and that is so present in Failure. It’s as if he bears our pain." --Gerald Stern, winner of the National Book Award
"Philip Schultz’s poems have long since earned their own place in American poetry. His stylistic trademarks are his great emotional directness and his intelligent haranguing—of god, the reader, and himself. He is one of the least affected of American poets, and one of the fiercest." --Tony Hoagland
"Philip Schultz’s poems have long since earned their own place in American poetry. His stylistic trademarks are his great emotional directness and his intelligent haranguing—of god, the reader, and himself. He is one of the least affected of American poets, and one of the fiercest." --Tony Hoagland
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Author
PHILIP SCHULTZ won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his most recent book of poems, Failure. His poetry and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, the Nation, the New Republic, and the Paris Review, among other magazines. In addition, he is the founder and director of the Writers Studio in New York.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
By Jaime Reyes
Format:Hardcover
Let me say from the get-go that the risky title of this book works better than I could ever have expected. Rather than being a failure, Philip Schultz's fifth book-length collection - his sixth if you count his superb chapbook, "My Guardian Angel Stein" (1986) - illuminates the dim recesses of what it means to be a failure. But this new book does so in a brilliantly successful way. Take Schultz's poems about his hapless father.
In previous collections Schultz's portraits of his dad abound with plenty of pathos. In the title poem of his new book, Schultz makes the distinction between a nobody - "You can't remember / a nobody's name, that's why / they're called nobodies" - and a true failure: "Failures are unforgettable." Schultz then proceeds to catalogue and commemorate his father's business failures: "a parking lot that raised geese, / a motel that raffled honeymoons, / a bowling alley with roving mariachis." I find Samuel Schultz's business schemes as hilarious as anything I've heard in the annals of down-and-outers. More than ever before, Schultz's remembrance of things past takes on epic perspective. The poems in "Failure" will hardly ever fail to succeed in bringing you to tears, or such gales of laughter you might as well be listening to one of the greatest stand-up tragi-comic artists of our time.
The book's cover photo of a bent nail that's been hammered into wood badly - unsuccessfully - suggests the offbeat - bent out of shape? - funny-sad Eastern European sensibility of someone like Isaac Babel, who stated, "We're all failed sentences. . . / one big lopsided family of relative clauses / who agree on nothing, whose only subject is / how we came to be us, despite our passion for / knowledge, especially while we were still alive.... Read more ›
In previous collections Schultz's portraits of his dad abound with plenty of pathos. In the title poem of his new book, Schultz makes the distinction between a nobody - "You can't remember / a nobody's name, that's why / they're called nobodies" - and a true failure: "Failures are unforgettable." Schultz then proceeds to catalogue and commemorate his father's business failures: "a parking lot that raised geese, / a motel that raffled honeymoons, / a bowling alley with roving mariachis." I find Samuel Schultz's business schemes as hilarious as anything I've heard in the annals of down-and-outers. More than ever before, Schultz's remembrance of things past takes on epic perspective. The poems in "Failure" will hardly ever fail to succeed in bringing you to tears, or such gales of laughter you might as well be listening to one of the greatest stand-up tragi-comic artists of our time.
The book's cover photo of a bent nail that's been hammered into wood badly - unsuccessfully - suggests the offbeat - bent out of shape? - funny-sad Eastern European sensibility of someone like Isaac Babel, who stated, "We're all failed sentences. . . / one big lopsided family of relative clauses / who agree on nothing, whose only subject is / how we came to be us, despite our passion for / knowledge, especially while we were still alive.... Read more ›
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
My determination for liking a poem is whether it makes me see or feel a subject in a new or unique way. Philip Shultz succeeds in doing this in the majority of his offerings for this collection--the ironic title not withstanding. There is also a coziness in many of the pieces that settles nicely over one as the poems are read.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ok, how not to start with the end of the line from Beckett. Failure is a beautiful collection of poems. The first ones sneak up on you, like the flakes of a season's first snow, dislked but then stunning in their magic. Failure creeps into all aspects of Schultz's life, in his relationships, in his thoughts, in his actions. Nothing is good enough it seems, but can that in itself be beauty? Can that be good enough? "I could sit by the window watching the leaves,/which seem to know exactly how to fall/ from one moment to the next. Or I could lose/ everything and have to begin over again." Schultz plays with simple words and simple phrases, striving for straight emotions but ending up peripherally skirting them -- but this gives the poems strength by way of the contrast of phraseology and semantic content. The final poem is a long meditation on dog walking and life and death. "I don't know how to proceed,/ I said, I never knew/ because/ it hurts so bad.//Yes it does, he said,/ Yes, indeed." Tinged by melancholy and loss, the poems are shining gems. Don't fail to get a copy.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By D. Lynn
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This work is very touching, deep, serious, human and beautiful.
The stories and characters are greatly depicted.
We all have failures. This book is a success in taking them up.
I am very impressed by it!!
The stories and characters are greatly depicted.
We all have failures. This book is a success in taking them up.
I am very impressed by it!!
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Philip Schultz, Failure (Harcourt, 2007)
I got about a third of the way through Failure then misplaced the book. Once I found it and started again, I found I liked it better, thus adding more evidence to my hypothesis that the current emotions of the reader affect what s/he feels about any given book. Which sounds like an optimistic beginning to this review, but I didn't like it that much better.
Narrative poetry is a tricky thing, especially given that poetry is where that old chestnut "show, don't tell" does the majority of its heavy lifting. Sometimes the line gets blurry enough that you can read a passage either way. The poets who tread this particular line tend to be more inconsistent than most, for obvious reasons; I can't think of anyone who always manages to stay on the "show" side. Then again, such things may be judgment calls. I'll leave it to you:
"Patricia says, the Righteous Brothers and I
moved in Thanksgiving, 1977,
and immediately began looking for
that ever-loving feeling, rejoicing
at being a citizen of the ever-clanging future,
all of us walking up Perry Street,
down West Tenth, around Bleecker,
along the Hudson, with dogs, girlfriends..."
("The Adventures of 78 Charles Street")
It looks like a pretty clear-cut example of "tell" to me. But, as usual, one can find a just-about-equal number of examples of "show", most of which are in the back half of the book (which can also be used as evidence that the emotions of the reader have nothing to do with his or her feelings about the book), which is comprised of the long poem "The Wandering Wingless". It's worth reading, but it probably won't be the best book you pick up this year. ***
I got about a third of the way through Failure then misplaced the book. Once I found it and started again, I found I liked it better, thus adding more evidence to my hypothesis that the current emotions of the reader affect what s/he feels about any given book. Which sounds like an optimistic beginning to this review, but I didn't like it that much better.
Narrative poetry is a tricky thing, especially given that poetry is where that old chestnut "show, don't tell" does the majority of its heavy lifting. Sometimes the line gets blurry enough that you can read a passage either way. The poets who tread this particular line tend to be more inconsistent than most, for obvious reasons; I can't think of anyone who always manages to stay on the "show" side. Then again, such things may be judgment calls. I'll leave it to you:
"Patricia says, the Righteous Brothers and I
moved in Thanksgiving, 1977,
and immediately began looking for
that ever-loving feeling, rejoicing
at being a citizen of the ever-clanging future,
all of us walking up Perry Street,
down West Tenth, around Bleecker,
along the Hudson, with dogs, girlfriends..."
("The Adventures of 78 Charles Street")
It looks like a pretty clear-cut example of "tell" to me. But, as usual, one can find a just-about-equal number of examples of "show", most of which are in the back half of the book (which can also be used as evidence that the emotions of the reader have nothing to do with his or her feelings about the book), which is comprised of the long poem "The Wandering Wingless". It's worth reading, but it probably won't be the best book you pick up this year. ***
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
It filled not only my mind, but my heart as well.
It is a book that will be read more than once by me and I recomend it to some members of my family, as well as others, that are not shy of reading a book as heart rending as this... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Stan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wanting More
It is difficult not to load praise on Philip Schultz's collection of poems Failure. At turns very knowledgeable, even pedantic, the poems become, through the twists of Schlutz's... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Eric Maroney
5.0 out of 5 stars
He is a brilliant poet!
In the late 1970's I lived in Manhattan as astruggling actress and went to a poetry reading done by the (then) struggling poet. I fell in love with his first work, 'Like Wings. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Rennie Manning
4.0 out of 5 stars
Failure is good
Failure: poems, by Philip Schultz is definitely a good read. It's more autobiographical than what I thought it would be. Read more
Published on February 7, 2011 by Roger
2.0 out of 5 stars
disappointment
I was disappointed in this book. Because it won the pulitzer with Robert Hass, who is an excellent poet, I thought this book would similarly be good. It isn't. Far from it. Read more
Published on March 21, 2009 by thespider
5.0 out of 5 stars
wonderful
still reading it but it's so accessible to a general reader and so full of life.
Published on November 11, 2008 by murray
5.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome back Carver
Apart from Les Murray's works (see, "An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow") I haven't felt so moved by poetry since I read Carver's collected works.
Published on June 22, 2008 by Kafka's Cousin
