Dana Gioia has made a practice of sub-dividing his books into five sections, each headed by an elucidative quotation.  It’s a device that works invitingly, and Gioia is a particularly hospitable poet, always venturing to light the way for his readers as he leads them through the various (and they are various) chambers of his art.

            In the case of his most recent book, Interrogations at Noon (Graywolf Press), a Flaubert quotation heads the first section, introducing the theme of human inadequacy encountered throughout the book:  “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”  A poetry book usually takes its title from a key poem in the collection, and “Interrogations at Noon,” for all its lyric polish, is a harshly unforgiving piece.  Noon is the hour when nothing can hide from the sun, and Gioia’s noon, like Milton’s, is “without all hope of day.”  The poem begins with the poet recognizing the voice of “the better man I might have been.”  With this voice, he berates himself with such acrimonious self-accusation, it leaves the reader dumbfounded, wondering, “Where did that come from?”  If the words of Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” go largely ignored in today’s anti-depressant-ridden climate of ‘feel good’ aspirations, “Interrogations at Noon” takes Socrates to heart with a vengeance.  It turns the statement inside-out by insisting the examined life is also not worth living, because all it reveals is falsity and unworthiness.  I’m not so sure most Twenty-first Century literary consumers are ready for this disconcerting depth of inner doubt:

“You cultivate confusion like a rose
In watery lies too weak to be untrue,
And play the minor figures in the pageant,
Extravagant and empty, that is you.”

            This stark admission of failure is daringly depressing.  It escapes all irony.  Still, Gioia coats his dangerous pill with a terse, melodic pentameter, and graceful pairs of rhymes, fashioning an elegant, ennobling annihilation of self-worth.  However hastily we might recoil from the unwanted feelings the poem engenders, “Interrogations at Noon” ultimately astonishes with its sudden, contumelious outpouring.

            Unaccidentally, “Failure” is the title of the poem which follows, and, unlike its predecessor, it brightens with irony.  Gioia celebrates failure in untypically plain, free verse stanzas:

Why not consider it an accomplishment?
Failure doesn’t happen by itself.  It takes time,
effort, and a certain undeniable gift.
Satisfaction comes from recognizing what you do best. 

            In its closing line, the sarcasm of “Failure” is almost comforting.  “You only fail at what you really aim for,” the poet shrugs, and calls to mind the resonating irony of Bob Dylan’s, “There’s no success like failure.”  Failure, after all, is evidence that you’ve tried.  Success may only occur involuntarily.