Andrew S. Guthrie

Alphabet Andrew S. Guthrie

Alphabet consists of twenty-six poems concerning the vagaries of failure, the underrated opposite of success. But in this case, the context of failure necessarily includes the genre of contemporary poetry, that most disabused yet over-abundant mode of expression. Why would anyone choose to express themselves in a manner that automatically narrows the readership, even after dispensing with avant-garde ambitions? - Precisely because its condition might lend itself to the aimless, useless or extra-economic moments when success can be turned on its head. And though the poet might be prone to the audience's neglect, history itself is rife with countless examples of spectacular literary failures (as addressed in Alphabet), whether these traumas are eventually redeemed or forever lost. These examples include: misplaced manuscripts, writer's block, articulate illiterates, libraries that were burned to the ground, posthumous fame for the previously poverty-stricken, botched yet endlessly repeated translations, along with the obvious shortcomings of the dilettante, the over-inflated ego, and the perennial loser.