Poetry Day Ireland is an annual island-wide celebration of poetry which invites the nation to read, write, and share a poem on the day.
Presented by Poetry Ireland, the theme for this year is "Good Sports" celebrating the good sport in all of us, the drive to give it a go or to have a crack at it.
Read Rafael Mendes' poem On Failure and Persistence below.
On Failure and Persistence
.
Brazilians never give up,
announces the video's narrator:
Pelé having his black beauty
held, punched, and booted
left, right, and centre,
but enduring, dribbling past butchers,
and scoring a goal, any goal you can fathom.
Sometimes, the clip shows Ayrton Senna
winning the 1991 São Paulo Grand Prix stuck in sixth gear,
race marshals abandoning impartiality to hand him a national flag,
his sobs broadcast live to stilt houses and estates.
Then comes Ronaldo storming
Lazio’s centre-backs until he falls:
we can’t hear him wailing—but we do—
the clip fast-forwards to Oliver Kahn infant-like,
on all fours, the ball kissing the net,
Ronaldo’s index finger flicking Yokohama’s night,
arms wide open, loved like a deity
by two hundred million compatriots.
Still, I am more interested in second-rate success.
Crossing the dirt path, I look over my shoulder
and see you hunched by the blazing turntable,
the wrecked records, stale cans and butts.
That’s failure, I think. But you withstood the shakes,
the urge for the next nip-dodging Icarus’ destiny.
I write to the video’s producers, asking for a reshoot
because Brazilians mythicise the fall of space debris,
the fallen luminosity of supernovas.
Find out more about Poetry Day Ireland here.
