How to Write About Failure Without Writing a Sob Story

Failure is the hardest subject in poetry to get right. A judge on the three moves that turn a failure poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the failure or about you, and the one image that always works.

Failure is the hardest subject in poetry to get right, harder than love, harder than grief, harder than any of the big subjects that everyone writes about. The reason is simple: everyone has failed, and everyone thinks their failure is the worst, and the failure poem is the poem that is most likely to be a sob story.

The failure poem that works is not about the failure. It is about the person who failed.

The sob-story trap

The sob-story poem is the one that tells you how bad the failure felt. The disappointment, the shame, the self-pity. It is accurate and it is flat, because the failure is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader can feel for themselves.

A poem about failure should not describe the failure. It should describe what the failure did to the person who failed.

The three moves that turn a failure poem into a real one

Move one: put a person in it. The failure poem that works has a person in it, a rival, a friend, a self. The failure is the stage; the person is the play. The poem is about the person in the failure, not the failure itself.

Move two: give the failure a body. The failure should be doing something to the body, the hands that are shaking, the voice that is breaking, the eyes that are dry because the crying is done. If the failure is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something to the body, it is a subject.

Move three: let the failure change you. The best failure poems are the ones where the speaker is different at the end than they were at the beginning, and the failure is the thing that changed them. The failure is the agent; the poem is the change.

The question that decides

Here is the question I ask when I am judging a failure poem: is this poem about the failure, or is it about the person in the failure? If the answer is the failure, it is a sob story. If the answer is the person, it is a poem.

The sob-story poem says 'this is how bad it felt'. The real failure poem says 'this is what the failure did to me'. The difference is the difference between a complaint and a life.

A worked example

Bad: 'I lost the contest and I was so disappointed and I felt like a failure.' The failure is the subject; the speaker is absent.

Better: 'I learned to type the word 'rejection' without looking at the screen, the way you learn to hold a cup without looking at it.' The failure is the agent; the speaker is the person who is changed by it. The poem is about the person who has been changed by the failure, not the failure itself.

Where it goes wrong

The trap is the poem that is a complaint about the failure. The complaint is not a poem; it is a grievance. The poem is the thing that the failure did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.

If you want to see a failure poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on loss and the self, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. The failure is the stage. The person is the play.

Keep reading

For the craft side, the death poems collection covers the deeper method. The elegy form is the page to read next, and the Unheard Voices is where the work goes when it is done.

By Writory Editorial, for Writory.

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