THE PULITZER PRIZES 2008 in POETRY - Philip Schultz
Autor: Cristiano Junta | Publicado: 2009-02-08T02:38:00-08:00

THE PULITZER PRIZES 2008 in POETRYPhilip Schultz is a prize-winner writer. In 2008 he awarded with Pulitzer for “Failure” (Harcourt). Schultz is a writing and teacher of fiction literature. He founded and direct The Writers Studio (go to: http://www.writerstudio.com/pages/), a school for creative writing. I’m like very much his poems. See below for two picks on the Web publications.Listen Philip Schultz read “Failure”: click here (http://img.slate.com/media/73/Failure%20by%20Philip%20Schultz.wma)“Failure”To pay for my father's funeralI borrowed money from peoplehe already owed money to.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.The rabbi who read a stock eulogyabout a man who didn't belong toor believe in anythingwas both a failure and a nobody.He failed to imagine the sonand wife of the dead manbeing shamed by each word.To understand that notbelieving in or belonging toanything demanded a kindof faith and buoyancy.An uncle, counting on his fingersmy father's business failures—a parking lot that raised geese,a motel that raffled honeymoons,a bowling alley with roving mariachis—failed to love and honor his brother,who showed him how to whistleunder covers, steal appleswith his right or left hand. Indeed,my father was comical.His watches pinched, he trippedon his pant cuffs and snoredloudly in movies, wherehis weariness overcame himfinally. He didn't believe in:savings insurance newspapersvegetables good or evil humanfrailty history or God.Our family avoided us,fearing boils. I left townbut failed to get away.Reference to “Failure”, Slate Magazine in: http://www.slate.com/id/2164575/Whyby Philip SchultzAugust 27, 2007 in The New Yorkeris this man sitting here weeping;Why; Restaurants; Birthdays;Age; Childhood; Baseball is this man sitting here weepingin this swanky restauranton his sixty-first birthday, becausehis fear grows stronger each year,because he’s still the boy runningall out to first base, believinggetting there means everything,because of the spiders climbingthe sycamore outside his housethis morning, the elegance ofa civilization free of delusion,because of the boyish facesof the five dead soldiers on TV,the stoic curiosity in their eyes,their belief in the righteousnessof sacrifice, because innocenceis the darkest place in the universe,because of the Iraqis on their handsand knees looking for a bloody button,a bitten fingernail, evidence oftheir stolen significance, becauseof the primitive architectureof his dreams, the brutal egoismof his ignorance, because he believesin deliverance, the purity of sorrow,the sanctity of truth, because ofthe original human faces of his wifeand two boys smiling at him acrossthis glittering table, because oftheir passion for commemoration,their certainty that goodness continues,because of the spiders clinging tothe elegance of each moment, becausegetting there still means everything?Reference to “Why”: The New Yorker in: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2007/08/27/070827po_poem_schultzFor an interview with Philip Schultz (publish in Of(f) Course Journal in 2000 go to: http://www.albany.edu/offcourse/winter00/schultzinterview.html