Poetry can be used for creativity at work in three ways: to restore, to clarify, to organize.
Poetry at Work: Television Becomes Poetry Becomes Speech
A curious combination of television and poetry helped change an industry. I was having trouble finishing a speech. And it wasn’t just any speech but a rather significant departure for the company. It would have one of two outcomes. Either the company executive giving it would “elect to pursue career opportunities elsewhere” (companies rarely “fire” […]
Poetry at Work: How to Recognize a Poet at Work
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 […]
Poetry at Work: Beauty in the Workplace
Few associate our work with beauty. It’s one of the reasons, perhaps the primary reason, we fail to see poetry at work. No beauty, no poetry.
Poetry at Work: The Poetry of the Speech
Poetry has considerable practical value for the business of speechwriting: using language differently, the power of poetic techniques, thinking differently.
Dana Gioia’s “Pity the Beautiful: Poems”
It’s rather startling to read contemporary poetry that rhymes. And Pity the Beautiful: Poems by Dana Gioia is startling in exactly that way, and more. There’s a name for this, of course; we have to give everything a name: The “New Formalism.” It reaches back to a time when most poetry did indeed rhyme, and […]
Poetry at Work: Dana Gioia on Poetry in Business
The conventional American wisdom is that poets “must be people out of the ordinary; they must be strong, even eccentric individuals.” In other words, Walt Whitman fits our preconceived notions; Wallace Stevens, corporate lawyer, does not.
Poetry at Work: Dana Gioia and Can Poetry Matter?
In his 1991 Atlantic essay ‘Can Poetry Matter, ‘ Dana Gioia argued that poetry had been captured by academia and disconnected from its reading public.
Poetry at Work: PowerPoint as Poetry
Most PowerPoint presentations try to eliminate all white space with words. Presenters should approach PowerPoint like poetry, using as few words as possible.
Poetry at Work: The Best Job You Ever Had
It was only when I started writing poems that I began to understand that good and bad jobs, and best and worst jobs, often walk hand in hand.
Poetry at Work: What Poetry Brings to Business
In “What Poetry Brings to Business, ” Clare Morgan combines academic and business styles to explain the benefits poetry can provide to business enterprises.
Poetry at Work: Poetry at Work Day
Fortune 500 professional Glynn Young pinpoints almost the exact time he became aware that poetry inhabited his work. He was a corporate speechwriter…
Poetry at Work: The Poetry of Unemployment
Organizations see layoffs as business decisions; people affected see them as intensely personal. Unemployment is a part of work, and part of poetry at work.
Poetry at Work: A Tweetspeak New Year’s Resolution
Glynn Young reflects on a particular kind of resolution, the kind that comes from commitment and determination–the kind that created Tweetspeak Poetry.
The Poetry of Riffraff
It’s not a new thing for a poet to take common everyday things, the riffraff of our lives, and use them to signify or explain something larger. Glynn Young reviews Stephen Cushman’s “Riffraff: Poems” with special attention to the unique ways Cushman makes something of the riffraff.
The Art and Music of “Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot
“Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind / cannot bear very much reality.” Glynn Young recalls his first reading of Four Quartets, which T.S. Eliot wrote over six years, the last three poems during the London Blitz.
Poetry at Work: Christmas Day
For all of you, and so many more, you who are bringing us the poetry of your work today, we thank you.
Poetry at Work: Workplace Challenges and Problems
Writing poetry about conflicts, challenges, and problems in the workplace can help lead to understanding and, sometimes, resolution.
Poetry at Work: Ted Kooser, Insurance Underwriter (and Poet Laureate)
Glynn Young tells the story of acclaimed poet Ted Kooser, former U.S. Poet Laureate, who spent most of his working career in the insurance industry.
A Winner for the Emily Dickinson Giveaway
Glynn Young announces a winner for the free copy of Kristin LeMay’s “I Told My Soul to Sing: Finding God with Emily Dickinson.”