So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is

Title: The Poet’s Defeat

Host: The night was thick with ink and silence. A typewriter sat in the middle of the table, surrounded by crumpled pages, coffee rings, and the faint smell of tobacco. A single lamp burned low — its light yellow and weary, like the last defense against despair.

Outside, the city was still. Only the sound of the occasional car drifting down a wet street broke the hush — a metallic whisper of motion in a motionless world.

Jack sat in the lamplight, sleeves rolled, hair unkempt, staring at the blank paper as though it were an adversary rather than a page. The ashtray beside him overflowed with the evidence of every word he didn’t write.

Across the room, on a sagging couch, Jeeny watched him quietly, her legs tucked beneath her. The glow from the lamp barely reached her face, but her eyes caught the light — curious, compassionate, unflinching.

Jeeny: “Allen Tate once said — ‘So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.’”

Jack: (without looking up) “A failure in plain life. That part always hits hardest.”

Host: His voice was dry, brittle — the sound of irony scraped thin over self-recognition.

Jeeny: “You think that’s true? That every poet writes because they’ve failed somewhere else?”

Jack: “Of course it’s true. No one writes from triumph. They write because something didn’t work — love, ambition, God, the world. Poetry is just the consolation prize for existence.”

Jeeny: “That’s bleak.”

Jack: “No, that’s honest. The happy don’t make art. They make schedules.”

Host: He struck a match, lit another cigarette, and leaned back, exhaling smoke into the lamp’s dim halo. The smoke curled like a thought half-formed and reluctant to leave the body.

Jeeny: “Tate’s saying the poet invents beauty out of failure — that art is the imagination’s revenge against plain life.”

Jack: “Yeah, and that’s the tragedy. We make something sublime out of something miserable — but it doesn’t fix the misery. It just decorates it.”

Jeeny: “So art’s a form of denial?”

Jack: “No. It’s a confession in disguise.”

Host: His fingers tapped the side of the typewriter, restless, as though the machine might start writing for him if he kept rhythm long enough.

Jeeny: “And yet you keep writing.”

Jack: (smirking) “Because I don’t know how to sell cars.”

Jeeny: “Nobody does, apparently.”

Jack: “Exactly. That’s why people read poetry. Because they need to see their failure turned into something that sounds like music.”

Host: The lamp flickered, the shadows stretching across the walls — thin and long, like the ghosts of all the unwritten lines waiting to be born.

Jeeny: “You ever wonder if Tate was mocking the poet or pitying him?”

Jack: “Both. Mockery’s just pity in disguise. He saw the absurdity — a man who can’t live the world, so he tries to rewrite it. It’s pathetic. But also... divine.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you admire that kind of failure.”

Jack: “Because it’s the only kind worth having. The kind that still tries.”

Host: He reached for his glass, took a sip of whiskey, and winced at the taste — bitter, sharp, alive.

Jeeny: “You know, when he says ‘nobody is a perfect automobile salesman,’ it’s almost comforting. Like we’re all improvising, pretending to fit into lives that don’t fit us.”

Jack: “That’s exactly it. The salesman, the poet, the clerk — they’re all actors trapped in a play they didn’t write.”

Jeeny: “But the poet refuses the script.”

Jack: “Right. He rewrites it — even if it means losing the audience.”

Jeeny: “So failure becomes creation.”

Jack: “Failure is creation. Every line of poetry is a failed attempt at truth, made beautiful by the failure.”

Host: The rain began outside — soft, deliberate. The world seemed to breathe again.

Jeeny: “You know, Tate’s poet isn’t noble. He’s desperate. He can’t live in plain life, so he invents another one — one interesting enough to survive in.”

Jack: “That’s every artist. We build cathedrals out of our own collapse.”

Jeeny: “And call it expression.”

Jack: “And hope someone worships inside it long enough to make it feel worth it.”

Jeeny: “You think it ever works?”

Jack: “Sometimes. For a moment. Until the silence returns and the doubt starts knocking again.”

Host: His voice had softened, like the rain now whispering against the glass. The storm was steady, not wild — a patient sound, as if even the sky was tired of shouting.

Jeeny: “You talk about writing like it’s a disease.”

Jack: “Maybe it is. But it’s the only illness that makes the pain articulate.”

Jeeny: “And that makes you... a doctor of despair?”

Jack: “Something like that. I don’t heal anyone. I just translate what hurts into something readable.”

Jeeny: “And people read it because they recognize themselves.”

Jack: “Exactly. Failure is the only universal language.”

Host: The typewriter keys glimmered under the lamplight — waiting. The blank page shone white and merciless.

Jeeny: “But you don’t really believe you’re a failure, do you?”

Jack: “Of course I do. Every artist does. That’s why they keep creating — to prove their failure’s worth something.”

Jeeny: “And when it is?”

Jack: “Then they fail again — this time, trying to live up to it.”

Jeeny: “So art is a loop.”

Jack: “A beautiful loop of suffering disguised as purpose.”

Host: He smiled, but it wasn’t bitterness. It was surrender — the rare peace that comes from admitting futility and doing it anyway.

Jeeny: “You know, maybe Tate wasn’t being cruel. Maybe he was admiring the courage of it — to turn what’s unbearable into something bearable through words.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe he was warning us — that poetry’s not salvation, it’s camouflage.”

Jeeny: “Camouflage for what?”

Jack: “For longing. For the impossible wish to be understood.”

Jeeny: “And yet here you are, writing anyway.”

Jack: “Because longing is the only thing that still feels real.”

Host: The rain softened to drizzle, a quiet percussion against the window. Jeeny stood, crossed to the table, and placed her hand on the stack of papers beside him.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why I love poets. Not because they’re wise, but because they’re honest about being lost.”

Jack: “We’re not brave. We’re just loud about our confusion.”

Jeeny: “And that helps the rest of us feel less alone.”

Jack: “That’s the only victory left to us — to turn our failure into someone else’s recognition.”

Host: He looked at her hand on the pages — the soft contrast between her skin and the rough paper, the living touching the written.

Jeeny: “So maybe Tate was wrong. Maybe the poet is something. Maybe he’s the voice that says, ‘You don’t have to be perfect to mean something.’”

Jack: (quietly) “Maybe. But it still hurts to fail in plain life.”

Jeeny: “Then write about that too.”

Jack: “That’s all I ever write about.”

Host: The lamp dimmed lower, the storm outside fading into silence. Jack turned back to the typewriter, hands hovering over the keys like a prayer.

Host: And as the first line struck — sharp, imperfect, alive — Allen Tate’s words seemed to echo not as cynicism, but as clarity:

That the poet is not the escape from failure,
but the embodiment of it —
the one who takes what cannot be lived
and reshapes it into something that can be felt.

That in a world obsessed with success,
to make beauty from defeat
is the only act of rebellion left.

The rain stopped.
The lamp flickered once, then steadied.

And in that fragile, forgiving quiet,
the keys began to sing —
each stroke a hymn to imperfection,
each word a confession dressed as art.