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Poetry at Work: How to Recognize a Poet at Work

By Glynn Young 21 Comments

A secretary at work once stopped me outside my office. “People are worried about you, ” she said.

“Me?” I asked. “Why?”

“You’re walking the hallways, mumbling to yourself. People are noticing.”

I stared for a moment, and then I understood.

“I’m writing a speech, ” I said. “It’s a restless activity for me. I have to walk and mouth the words as I go. I have to hear them. The words have to sound right.”

She nodded, relieved, if still a little worried.

I was amused, and then I wondered, do people think I’m weird?

In a word, yes.

You can always recognize the poet at work.

Few of them actually wander the hallways, mumbling to themselves. Poets aren’t quite that odd. Usually.

But you can tell who they are, even if they don’t write or read poetry.

At meetings, for example, poets speak aloud what everyone else is thinking. “There’s a dead skunk in the middle of the table, ” they say, “and we’re avoiding it. But it’s still there, and it smells.”

Or someone has neglected to do something the rest of the team is depending upon to do their own work. People look embarrassed, too embarrassed to say anything. The guilty party brazens it out in silence.

The poet at the table looks around at everyone else and finally says, “Why didn’t you do your assignment?”

Or you’re interviewing candidates for a job using the same questions (supplied by Human Resources to keep the playing field level) with each one. The poet among them says, “I’m familiar with the behavioral question interview. Can’t we just talk about what’s important and what you need in the job?”

The poets at work make the uncomfortable observations, point out the embarrassingly obvious, cut through the thicket of workplace jargon to get straight to the point, and ask “why” about the more ridiculous aspects of the organization’s culture. They may never write or read a line of poetry, but they behave just like the people who do.

At best, they get classified in management reviews as “conscientious objectors.” At worst, they get saddled with the most dreaded characterization of the 21st century: “not a team player.” They rarely make it to senior management ranks; the culture recognizes a poet and responds like white blood cells fighting an infection.

Years ago, a story was told about a brilliant researcher who made it into senior management ranks. His brilliance included challenging the status quo in unorthodox ways. His executive office didn’t have a desk; he said he thought better while sitting in bed, a big four-poster bed right in the middle of the room. And he’d make surprise visits into the research labs, which he believed were too quiet. He’d bring a trumpet, and play it.

This was corporate America in the 1970s. He didn’t last long. No word on what happened to the bed.

Beds and trumpets aside, organizations need their poets. Not to keep people entertained or aggravated, but to do those things poets do best – stating the obvious, challenging the conventions, and keeping the organization from committing a kind of gradual suicide.

It’s right there on the table,
a piece of skunky road kill,
and we go to great lengths
not to talk about it,
not to acknowledge it,
to act in spite of it,
to plan and decide
pretending it’s not there.
But it is, isn’t it, safely
ignored until the poet
wanders in, mumbling.

Photograph by Kainet. Sourced via Flickr. Poetry at Work™ post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest and the recently published A Light Shining.

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Comments

  1. John says

    March 12, 2013 at 6:16 am

    Good work here, Glynn. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 12, 2013 at 7:23 am

      Thanks, John.

      Reply
  2. Donna says

    March 12, 2013 at 6:16 am

    Glynn this is going straight to a few poets at work that I know…. Thank you!!

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 12, 2013 at 7:24 am

      Let me know what they say! (And thanks for reading and commenting.)

      Reply
  3. Sandra Heska King says

    March 12, 2013 at 6:51 am

    This is awesome!

    Reply
  4. Sandra Heska King says

    March 12, 2013 at 6:51 am

    And smells good, too.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 12, 2013 at 7:24 am

      It passes the smell test? (And thanks for the comments.)

      Reply
  5. Elizabeth - Letters from a Small State says

    March 12, 2013 at 6:57 am

    This is spot on. Thank you!!

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 12, 2013 at 7:25 am

      Thanks, Elizabeth.

      Reply
  6. Mary Sayler says

    March 12, 2013 at 7:39 am

    Some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible came from Isaiah and other Prophets. The two just seem to go together – Poets and Prophets – with Saints optional 🙂 Thanks, Glynn.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 12, 2013 at 9:57 am

      Mary – I think it’s about one third of the Bible that’s written in verse. And now I have to consider what often happened to the prophets.

      Reply
  7. Maureen Doallas says

    March 12, 2013 at 9:47 am

    I wish I’d known to describe myself as Poet at Work during all those years toiling in an open office (when people were allowed to smoke indoors), being the one who spoke up and pointed out at the stand-up staff meetings (yes, no sitting), made sure the deadlines got met, and did the work myself when there was no one else. Gosh, I don’t miss that kind of poetry at all.

    Good post, Glynn! You and I, as I’ve said before, have had some very similar experiences in our office work lives. Even suicide-prevention efforts can be costly.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 12, 2013 at 9:59 am

      Maureen — the cost always has to be considered. And there is a cost for the “poet at work.” There’s also a cost for not being “the poet at work,” too. Thanks for the comment.

      Reply
  8. Eric 'Bubba' Alder says

    March 12, 2013 at 9:53 am

    You’re weird, I’m weird, all of us ‘poetic types’ are weird… that’s why we do what we do.

    Reply
  9. Glynn says

    March 12, 2013 at 10:00 am

    Eric – from one source of weirdness to another, Thank you.

    Reply
  10. davis says

    March 12, 2013 at 10:32 pm

    cut
    cut
    cut to the poem
    the effect
    of
    few words
    in black and white
    or in colour
    smells sweeter
    than sweet

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 13, 2013 at 1:19 pm

      Words are indeed powerful, and especially when we start to write them down. And they can be sweeter, too. Thanks for the comment.

      Reply
  11. Gail Kerber says

    March 13, 2013 at 12:25 am

    Wonder if we could ever get a poet to run for president?!

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      March 13, 2013 at 1:20 pm

      Gail, I’ll have to think about that one. Thanks for reading and commenting.

      Reply
  12. Lorrie says

    March 14, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    I love this… I feel validated 🙂

    Reply
  13. axorahomes.com says

    May 7, 2013 at 1:10 pm

    very nice site, good work!!

    Reply

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