Few jobs today are stress-free or even low-stress: not enough resources, not enough people, normal organizational politics and conflicts, reorganizations and layoffs, clashes between work and family demands, the speed and volume of information (and how it’s delivered). Workplace stress has been the new normal for at least the last two decades (I’m old enough to know it wasn’t always this way).
We relieve stress in different ways. We exercise. We pursue unusual hobbies or avocations. We travel (involving its own kind of stress, especially at airports). We quit organizational work life. And we drink, overeat, get sick and sometimes die from stress. Recently, I had the painful experience of a ruptured disk in my back; my doctor connected it directly to stress in my job.
We cope as best we can. I’ve found that poetry helps reduce stress at work, in five specific ways.
1. Read Poetry
Every Day Poems makes it easy by delivering a poem a day by email. Reading a single poem is easily manageable. In addition to Every Day Poems, I read poets—new and old, dead and living—to the extent my schedule allows. Sometimes it’s only a poem or two. And sometimes it’s a book of new poems read in one sitting.
Reading poetry does several things for me. It focuses my mind well away from the immediate stresses in my work life. It presents an idea of subject or theme in a way entirely differently from my usual work experience, challenging my mind to think differently. And reading poetry moves me to a different means of expression by presenting its ideas in a different way and format. Reading a poem costs nothing in terms of commitment or action—unless you want it to do that.
2. Take a Poem Apart
I will take a poem, usually a short one, and take it apart (the official term for this might be “explicate”). Why does it start that way? What images does it evoke? Why are phrases used that way? Why use that word, when another would have been sufficient or even better? What idea is it trying to convey, and does it work? Or could it work better said some other way?
3. Speak Poetry
That is, I read a poem out loud. You may think you understand a poem when you read it, but when you read it aloud, it can change. I find this utterly fascinating—how human speech combining with written words can transform meaning and understanding. Speaking a poem out loud also offers (usually) a kind of soothing rhythm, eddies of calmness in a chaotic work day.
4. Listen in Poetry
No matter what kind of job we have, at one time or another we find ourselves in meetings. I go to lots of meetings. Lots. About two years ago, I started “listening in poetry” at meetings and presentations, and even taking notes in poetic forms. My notes are not poems, but they are structured like poems.
Writing notes like poems allows me to chunk statements and my ideas, organize my thoughts, and often organize and structure my responses. It makes the time spent in meetings more productive and interesting, and even allows me to feel slightly rebellious (in a good way, of course). The easiest way to try this is with the ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation—look at bullet points as lines in a poem and edit accordingly.
5. Write Poetry
I write poetry, and sometimes the purpose is to deal with workplace stress. Organizational work life can provide great fodder for poems. So, for example, I’ll take a problem I’m wrestling with and write it out as poem. Or a conflict. Or a success or failure or mistake. If it does nothing else, it helps me make sense of a situation, an event, or even a person.
Poetry is not a cure-all for workplace stress. But it is one constructive way to deal with it, and cheaper than doctors, physical therapy and psychiatrists.
And perhaps—just perhaps—it can help produce something good from the stress—something of value, and even beauty.
Photograph by Rising Damp, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of Dancing Priest and the forthcoming novel A Light Shining.
__________________________
Buy a year of peaceful work mornings today, just $5.99.
- Poets and Poems: Marly Youmans and “Seren of the Wildwood” - March 28, 2023
- Poets and Poems: Sydell Rosenberg & Amy Losak and “Wing Strokes Haiku” - March 21, 2023
- Looking for the Poetry in Vermeer, a Blockbuster of an Art Exhibition - March 17, 2023
Martha Orlando says
What an incredibly unique idea, Glynn! I will have to try this out, for sure.
Blessings to you and wishing you a non-stressing week!
Marcus says
We’ve been asking the question, “what does shared silence look like online?” Poetry threatens people, but maybe it is the best answer we have.
Matthew Kreider says
That is a very interesting question, Marcus.
(And a great post, Glynn.)
Maureen Doallas says
The concept of “shared silence” and how it would look online fascinates me. I’m reminded of John Cage and his work 4’33” that deals with silence in music. Plotting it, a la the visually beautifully infographics that have been made to display Twitter use, would be interesting.
I do think it would be possible, within certain limits, to create a community of silence online, or at least to observe “streams of silence”. I’m thinking here of how a protest might be organized in which millions from FB took part, for example. Visually, I would imagine all the streams would just go dead, leaving empty white space? How that space might be intersected by non-participants would be interesting to see visually, too.
Having read “The Book of Silence”, it’s clear that there is a lot of noise in silence.
Matthew Kreider says
My interest has now moved to fascination.
David Rupert says
Shared silence … As men we understand this. We can all stand by the river, with reels singing and the water slapping and need not a single word to express what we are feeling.
Louise G. says
This is awesome Glynn! I love it! thank you. and I really like marcus’ question.
Maureen Doallas says
Great list, Glynn.
Another that could be added:
Watch poetry. An increasing number of wonderful new videopoems, which provide both aural and visual pleasure, are being made.
Monica Sharman says
Great addition, Maureen. Now you’ve got me thinking. Dance poetry?
Maureen Doallas says
Monica,
One phrase that’s used is motionpoems; however, MotionPoems also is an already taken Website name. Another is moving poems (with “moving” having more than one meaning, the literal and the emotional); that, too, has been claimed by a Website. Others: videopoems, animated poetry, video animations (though animation is really a sub-category), interactive poetry, electronic poetry, digital poetry… lots of ways to refer to essentially the same category of thing.
Maureen Doallas says
I should also have included: poetry in motion.
Leonard Cohen, by the way, has been described as “poetry in motion”.
Glynn says
I think we’re crowdsourcing ideas for poetry reducing stress, and I love it.
Dianna Rostad says
What a wonderful idea! I got one of these books for my sister for Christmas.