I read Keats upside down.
It’s not me; it’s the book. Random House bound it that way several decades ago.
But then again, maybe it is me. I’m the kind of person you’d more likely find reading The Contractors’ Blue Book than Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual. And if I’m skimming through Findings, odds are good it’s a medical exam, not Wendell Berry.
I’ve inhabited the prairie dog trailer park of the corporate cubicle, working on the front line and in management for both global and regional companies. Those companies are now my clients. I’m a property and casualty insurance claim adjuster, most at home in the world of tape measures and spreadsheets, contracts and case law. Objective evidence and quantifiable data rule the day. Such abstract conveyors of truth as poetry and art enter the conversation only if the house fire consumes them.
So I’m happy to wink and hold the volume of poems upside down, hoping no one takes too seriously that I enjoy reading and writing poetry myself.
It seems, though, that others far wiser than I have discovered poetry’s needful but long overlooked place in the cubicle and the board room, perhaps a key to restoring the frayed connection between work and the soul of the worker. Or, as David Whyte explains, to “reconcile the left-hand ledger sheet of the soul with the right-hand ledger sheet of the corporate world, a kind of double-entry bookkeeping that can bring together two opposing sides of ourselves normally split by the pressures of work.”
It is with that hope for reconciliation of business and the soul that we invite you to join us for an upcoming four-week discussion of Whyte’s book, The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America. We’ll discover what the confrontation between Beowulf, a 6th century consultant, and Grendel’s mother can still say to us today in the midst of the challenges of 21st century business. And we’ll let Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, T.S. Eliot and others speak to us of knowledge, fear, failure and success.
Meet us here on March 7 for chapters 1 and 2. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Photo and post by Lyla Lindquist, from A Different Story.
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Oh, Lyla, this is so good. I am really looking forward to this! I even started reading already, since I had an inside scoop that it was going to happen
OK. You dissed two of my favorites–Ted Kooser and Wendell Berry (only his fiction, though). But I will stick around and listen, since Grendel’s mother is involved.
I read The Heart Aroused and Whyte’s poetry years ago. I think it’s time for a revisit.
No, Megan, no! Not dissed. I’m reading Kooser. I love Berry. It’s all about what you’d expect to see me reading. Expectations. Stay with me. I like you here.
Sorry. I’m all feisty lately.
oh, shoot, Megan. And Sara had to go and tease you about your lapsed license?
(you can be feisty here, we love your spirit
Or you could read standing on your head. That way the book is right-side up.
Fun to see you in this place.
I am a big fan of unlicensed feistiness, Megan.
And if we’re taking on Grendel’s mother, well, we’re going to need everything everyone’s got.
Including Sara.
I thought about that, Jennifer. And then I had visions of the ambulance, and, well, you know.
But we’re going to have some fun. You should swing by again.
Here here! Here’s to poetry in the boardroom ! I read that book several years ago, but a revisit is well due. Thanks, lyla.
Whew! Well, this one caught me totally by surprise. I’m not part of the corporate world (though my husband was, once upon a time) so I don’t think this book club will be on my agenda – but I am DELIGHTED to see you here, Lyla. And I loved reading this comment stream. :>)
Diana, I think you might actually want to consider it
This book is so thoughtful, so fascinating, if only for the poetry of it. Whyte’s discussion of Beowulf (which I admit I never liked) is something to behold. As are his thoughts on the impact of poetry on a life.
Maybe get it from the library and take a peek?
Sounds right on, Lyla. I will tune in to your posts.
Thanks, Sam. I’m looking forward to it, even as Grendel’s mother makes me a bit nervous.
Excellent choice…I’ve been reading Whyte for years, and he’s the real deal.