Jack Gilbert's "Failing and Flying" is a poem that wrestles with the duality of human experience, where falling and rising are intertwined in a delicate dance.
Enjambment, the continuation of a sentence or phrase across line breaks, becomes a crucial tool in conveying this dynamic. It forces us to pause, to linger on certain words, and ultimately, to embrace the uncertainty that hangs between success and failure.
One striking example occurs in the opening lines: Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
The word "flew" hangs at the end, suspended in the air like Icarus himself. This delay emphasizes the importance of remembering, not just the tragic fall, but the exhilarating moment of flight. It sets the tone for a poem that challenges our binary thinking about failure and invites us to reconsider the beauty of the attempt, even if it ends in ashes.