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"Failing and Flying" Through Life's Adversities; A Reflection on Love by Alessandra Horii

By [Alessandra Horii], [Poetry Interpretation] Team

The poetry interpretation project at UCSB is an abstract method of interpreting a poem’s meaning.  The finished product would compromise of an online database that provides an alternative way of reading a poem.  Through different modes of media such as pictures, sounds, and words, the user can better understand the messages and moods of a given poem.  The finished website would offer the user a selection of poems to choose from and for each it would offer four visual interpretations.  For each of these interpretations there is a series of three collages.  As the user clicks through them, the images become more and more condensed.  They are simplified through a three-step progression in order to help the user understand the poem on a higher level.  Poems are complex in that they reflect the emotions and thoughts of the poet and so through this three-step progression, the complexity of thoughts can be simplified through their deconstruction.  By condensing a poem, it allows the main points of a poem to be emphasized.  People read poems and get different messages and emotions from them.  To get a complete picture of what a poem is about, the poetry interpretation project allows users to view four different perspectives of a poem.  By viewing these four interpretations it is interesting to note how there are overlaying themes, which run throughout more than one of the perspective views.  If more than one person emphasizes a certain line or emotion it may reveal the poet’s intentions for his poem. 

The poetry interpretation project has created a sample of this database through the visual interpretation of Jack Gilbert’s “Failing and Flying.”  “Failing and Flying” has a unique structure and colorful word choice that is open to the interpretation of the reader.  A close study of the poem can be supplemented by the visual collages of the poetry interpretation project.  This report will take a closer look into the poem’s text and it’s relation to the series of three collages made by one of the creators of the project, Alessandra Horii.  This series of collages can be found by clicking on the photo second from the right on the “Failing and Flying” main page.  “Failing and Flying’s” meaning, structure, and mood can be expressed through the visuals that the project provides. 

The diction that Gilbert chooses conveys an encouraging message of remembering the past.  Through writing about a lost relationship, Gilbert depicts his view of the importance of focusing on the good.  He explains that when a relationship ends, people tend to focus on the fact that it ended and not on the fact that the relationship existed.  Even if a relationship no longer exists, the fact still stands that while it did exist, it was most likely filled with wonderful memories that Gilbert feels should be appreciated.  This message is embodied through the words, “But anything worth doing is worth doing badly” (Gilbert 6-7).  This means that if something is to be considered worth doing, it doesn’t matter if it was done badly or if it ended badly.  The important thing is that it was done. 

“Failing and Flying” starts off with the line, “Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew” (Gilbert 1).  This shows that people forget that Icarus flew; all they remember him for is that he fell from the sky.  Greek mythology tells the story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun and melted his waxwings.  By pointing out that “Icarus also flew,” Gilbert emphasizes the rise rather than the fall of Icarus.  According to “The Secret Language of Symbols,” “Flight represents freedom from the physical restrictions of earth-bound life, and the ascent of the soul to the gods” (Fontana 143).  In the context of Greek mythology, this interpretation of flight shows how Icarus achieved freedom in the form of flight from his imprisonment by King Minos.  This is connected to the poem in that Gilbert wants the reader to break away from any restrictions that focusing on the bad might create.  Focusing on the bad puts a negative outlook on life that could inhibit the living of a happy life.  Icarus fell because the sun melted his wings.  The image of the sun reveals a deeper meaning through the interpretation of it as a symbol of a higher entity.  “Because of its high position in the heaven and the clarity of its light, the sun was regarded as all-seeing and was worshipped as a (mostly masculine god in a number of civilizations” (Fontana 201).  Icarus’s fall away from the sun represents a fall away from perfection.  It would be perfect to stay in a happy relationship, but to have faults and to have a break up is to be human.  Therefore, although there is a fall away from perfection, it is important to focus on what was good because that is what being human is about- making the most of what life offers.  The collage depicts this message through the image of the woman holding the sorbet flower and the image of a glass half full of water.  These images express the emotion of making the most of what you are given and focusing on the good advocated by “Failing and Flying.”  

Gilbert continues this thought in the second line, “It’s the same when love comes to an end” (Gilbert 2).  This comparison shows the similarities between an ending love and Icarus’s fall.  People tend to focus on the end of a tragic story, whether it is about freedom or love, or about myths or reality.  The next few lines of the poem explain how people focus on an end of a marriage.  “The marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work.  That she was old enough to know better” (Gilbert 3-6).  While a marriage lasts, people are likely to congratulate and encourage the bride and groom, but as soon as it ends, the focus shifts to the failure of the marriage.   

“Failing and Flying” then shifts to a more present day poetic means of discussing a failed marriage through imagery:

“Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last” (Gilbert 8-12).  These lines discuss how at the end of a marriage the separation feels like being on the same island, but at opposite ends of it.  The stars in these lines signify that it is nighttime.  Commonly in literary texts night is considered a negative setting.  “Night was the time when the spirits of dead walked the earth and the ‘power of darkness’ were abroad” (Fontana 196).  The fact that the night is the setting for the line, “anyone could tell you they would never last” emphasizes that the couple is breaking up (Gilbert 12).  This also shows on a literal level how people focus on the darkness of an event like they focus on negativity.  The night contrasts sharply with the morning.  “Every morning she was asleep in my bed like a visitation” (Gilbert 13-14).  In the night description, the focus is on the brokenness of the relationship, but in this day description the focus is on the love that the couple once shared.  “In European cultures, day generally stands for life and night for death, with the dawn corresponding to resurrection and joy” (Fontana 196).  Since Jack Gilbert spent a large part of his life living in Europe he was most likely influenced by European culture and so this interpretation strongly applies to the poem.   This line embodies this symbolism through a positive view of this woman in his bed.

Their love is also compared to Provence.  “How can they say the marriage failed?  Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy” (Gilbert 20-23).  Provence is a region of southeastern France that borders the Mediterranean Sea.  It is a beautiful province adjacent to Italy.  For anyone to point out the bad in such a beautiful place would make that person pessimistic.  Saying that “the marriage failed” would also be a pessimistic thing to say since the marriage itself was such a great memory.  Failing to acknowledge the beauty of the marriage is just like pointing out the greasy food of Provence in that in both circumstances, the good parts of each are not appreciated.  “When it was Provence” is put in parenthesis to highlight the comparison between the region and marriage.  These words are added to show that Provence’s past and a marriage’s past are being compared because they are both wonderful, but people can choose to view them in a negative light and ignore the beauty. 

The structure of “Failing and Flying” illustrates Jack Gilbert’s relaxed tone.  His style of writing reflects the relaxed message of loving love that runs throughout “Failing and Flying.”  It is fluidly written to resemble simple story telling.  The sentences are broken up into short lines to prevent the reader from being overwhelmed and so to maintain the relaxed mood.  Gilbert breaks into a new line when he starts a new idea, and when he wants to reiterate on an idea.  For example, this is seen from lines 1 to 2.  “Icarus also flew.  It’s the same…” (Gilbert 1-2).  Gilbert starts a new line because he is comparing one thing, which is love, to another thing, which is Icarus’s flight.  Another example of this broken down sentence structure is through lines 16-17.  “I watched her coming back through the hot stony field” (Gilbert 16-17).  The line breaks at the word “back” because “through the hot stony field” further describes the first part of the sentence.  This is also seen from the words “the huge sky” to “on the other side of that” because the second part of the sentence is used to make the first part of the sentence richer (Gilbert 18-19).  Gilbert uses this system of breaking up sentences to reinforce the theme of looking at the big picture.  He encourages his audience to not only see the bad, but also remember the good.  This is similar to how it is not only important to see the first part of the sentence, but also the second part to get the full impact of what Gilbert is saying.             

The mood of the poem is that of sadness, but of hope in remembering good memories.  This contrast is shown through the theme of light versus dark.  This theme is depicted through the night and morning, and the sun and fall away from the sun found in the poem.  Line 11 of “Failing and Flying” using the word “nights,” which casts a negative mood on the fact that the couple is breaking up.  When the poem shifts to the setting of the morning with a positive outlook, the woman asleep in Gilbert’s bed is described as being there “like a visitation” (Gilbert 14).  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, visitation is “a visit by an ecclesiastical person (or body) to examine into the state of a diocese, parish, religious institution” (OED).  By using this word, Gilbert’s lover is given an angelic characteristic.  Therefore this further emphasizes the morning as representing past pleasantry.  This contrast between light and dark is shown in the collage through the image of the sparkler.  The closer the pictures are to the sparkler the more positive the pictures are.  This demonstrates how Jack Gilbert wants the reader to focus on good memories.  The farther away from the sparkler that the pictures are placed, the more negative the memories are.  Gilbert does not want the reader to focus on the bad and so the pictures are placed far away from the focus of the collage. 

This theme of light and dark is also embodied through the first and last lines of “Failing and Flying.”  The light represents the sun and the dark represents Icarus’s fall.  The last couple lines of the poem help tie the whole poem together by referring back to the allusion of Icarus, which is introduced in the first line, “Icarus also flew” (Gilbert 1).  Icarus is brought up again in the last lines, “I believe Icarus was not falling as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph” (Gilbert 24-25).  By ending the poem with these lines, it ends the poem on a positive note, which ties in with the theme of focusing on the positive.  Icarus’s fall was a fall away from the light of the sun, but this fall also symbolized a fall away from the desire to be more than human.  To be human is to accept love, but also to accept the loss of love and so falling away from the light represents a mere stumble that is found in all walks of life.  Icarus may have fallen, but he also did fly and so his fall is a only closing of his story.   

The tone of the “Failing and Flying” is also expressed through the apparent love for his ex-wife.  Gilbert uses soothing diction to paint a mental picture of the grace of his lover, and therefore emphasizes the love that they once shared.  When he sees her he sees “the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist” (Gilbert 14-15).  By describing her as being gentle, Gilbert appraises her character and does emit any bitter undertones from their break up.  This encourages any reader to let go of any bitterness too.  If he is not holding on to negativity, then why should the reader since it is not the audience’s relationship?  Gilbert also writes, “I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming…Listened to her while we ate lunch” (Gilbert 16-17, 19-20).  He describes this woman in sensual terms through the use of the words “hot” and “swimming,” but then also shows a softer side of their love by adding that he also “listened to her” (Gilbert 17, 19).  This shows the intensity of their past love, which shows how it would be a shame to forget it ever happened.      

In conclusion, what the user benefits most from the poetry interpretation project is a deeper understanding of the mood of the poem.  Poems are filled with the emotion of the author.  This is why poems use abstract ways of conveying a simple idea.  “Failing and Flying” utilizes symbolism and metaphor to express the emotion of loving someone for so long and then suddenly losing that love.  In life, people use more than one type of sense to take in the world around them.  People use sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell to absorb life and so the more modes of sense that can be incorporated into interpreting a poem, the better one can understand the thought that is put into the writing and purpose of a poem.  The poetry interpretation project works to incorporate sight and someday, sound, in fitting with the reading of the text in order to approach a poem from new perspectives.  It is a way of expanding the mind.          

Fontana, David.  The Secret Language of Symbols.  San Francisco:  Chronicle Books, 2003. 

Gilbert, Jack.  “Failing and Flying.”  Poets.org.  2005.  Academy of American Poets.  15 March 2008 http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16872

“Oxford English Dictionary.”  Oxford University Press.  2008. 

    <http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/>