I love poetry. The kind that has cadence and rhyme and the kind that scatters words across a blank page, with not a thought of form or function. Here's a small example of my own:
I love how poetry shines
in a child’s eyes;
how it bursts
in grand colors
of blue,
and
purple,
and lavender –
splashed
across the landscape
of her imagination.
The Epic Language of Poetry
Poetry, according to Wikipedia, “…has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh." Early poems were created from folk songs such as "the Chinese Shijing," or from a need to pass along oral epics, as with "the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey."
In the world of business today, the 21st century today, have you noticed yourself overlooking the poetry all around you? We spend so much time ‘working’ – we have little time for amusement – and poetry. Just think of the drudgery of that term; work is something you do for pay. It’s something you have to do, to put food on the table and pay your electric bill and pay for cable so you can watch TV.
It’s fraught with disillusionment and often with dismay: how did I get here and why do I stay?
I find it so sad that in that drudgery, our poetic self fades into the woodwork. We cannot see the angel wings, or feathered clouds; we are too busy trudging through our day to see the essence of poetry around us. And, even when it calls to us, we shake our shoulders as if a cold breeze, a message of chilling rain to come, is slithering down our neck, and must be shrugged off.
I have a sincere desire to burst through the barriers we’ve built up around poetry and art. I have a strong desire to bring creativity back into our lives.
There is so much of art in life and business. Art as action, linked here, is where I learned to once again appreciate the beauty of poetry in my life.
I learned to look for it, lurking in corners of rooms or edges of the sidewalk, pulsing as we pass. I began to see it in the between spaces of time - those moments given to us by a caring Universe, meant to guide us through the mist of uncertainty.
Who hasn’t heard the poetry in a child’s question about a caterpillar inching along the walk, or in her laughter as she tickles her toes in the sand, at the beach, of a bright summer afternoon? We know this kind of poem. Don’t we?
There is art and poetry everyone around you
I believe there is art and poetry in the office, as well. It’s in the pie chart a colleague created, not thinking of it as art or poetry as much as thinking of the KPI of it. And yet, if you look a little deeper – it’s there, in the colors, the font of the explanation on the page, the language used to tell the story. It’s all art. It’s all human. It’s all us. [KPI = key performance indicator - a less likely poetic term I have never heard! And still, you can make poetry from it]
In the book On the Origin of Stories, by Brian Boyd, he says, “…a story does not bring about its own outcome but causes an audience to feel and respond in some ways as if they had witnessed the events.”
Is this not what poetry does? What narrative does? What human beings crave? The experience! And, in that pie chart, that presentation, that story of why and how the marketing plan worked, poetry peeks out – a word here, a gesture there, a smile and a chuckle. Whether we choose to attribute the outcome to poetry, or not, I say the experience is poetic, regardless.
I do believe we are born in, we live in, and we grow old in poetry, regardless of our ability to recognize it or quote it. Or appreciate it.
If you are ready to acknowledge the abundance of art in the world around you and in your very soul, if you are ready to move away from the buzz words of business, I urge you to step aside from your worry that your narrative is not worth sharing and instead, throw your words on paper, scatter them like leaves in the summer wind, until you discover the sound, the touch, the feel, the experience of living as a poet.
“My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed – my dearest pleasure when free.” ~ Mary Shelley
Let your inner muse emerge. Create the refuge and dearest pleasure… of your dreams.
If you’re ready to bring art and narrative and poetry into your life, both your personal and business life, the better to allow your soul a chance to sing, let's talk. That book you've always wanted to write is full of beautiful poetry. I am certain of it. Share in a comment below.

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