Category work thoughts

‘Takeoff’ a poem by Timothy Steele

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This week’s Friday poem is ‘Takeoff’ for all of you at the airport, waiting to board a flight home after a long week @work. Timothy Steele is an award winning poet who serves as a professor of English at Cal State LA.

Takeoff

Our jet storms down the runway, tilts up, lifts:
We’re airborne, and each second we see more—
Outlying hangars, wetlands with a pond
That flashes like sheened silver and, beyond,
An estuary and the frozen drifts
Of breakers wide and white along a shore.

One watches, cheek in palm. How little weight
The world has as it swiftly drops away!
How quietly the mind climbs to this height
As now, the seat-belt sign turned off, a flight
Attendant rises to negotiate
The steep aisle to a curtained service bay.

Timothy Steele, from ‘The Color Wheel’, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994

On Imagination a poem by Phillis Wheatley

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The ‘Friday Poem’ comes from an eighteenth century African-American woman, Phillis Wheatley who was the first published African-American Poet.

Sondra A. O’Neale of Emory University authored a profile of Ms. Wheatley on the Poetry Foundation website. “In the past ten years, Wheatley scholars have uncovered poems, letters, and more facts about her life and her association with eighteenth-century black abolitionists. They have also charted her notable use of classicism and have explicated the sociological intent of her biblical allusions. All this research and interpretation has proven Wheatley’s disdain for the institution of slavery and her use of art to undermine its practice.”

On Imagination

Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,
How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee!
Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand,
And all attest how potent is thine hand.

From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend,
Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:
To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,
Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.

Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies,
Till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes,
Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,
And soft captivity involves the mind.

Imagination! who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind:
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.

Though Winter frowns to Fancy’s raptur’d eyes
The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;
The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,
And bid their waters murmur o’er the sands.
Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,
And with her flow’ry riches deck the plain;
Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,
And all the forest may with leaves be crown’d:
Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,
And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.

Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain,
O thou the leader of the mental train:
In full perfection all thy works are wrought,
And thine the sceptre o’er the realms of thought.
Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,
Of subject-passions sov’reign ruler thou;
At thy command joy rushes on the heart,
And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.

Fancy might now her silken pinions try
To rise from earth, and sweep th’ expanse on high:
From Tithon’s bed now might Aurora rise,
Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies,
While a pure stream of light o’erflows the skies.
The monarch of the day I might behold,
And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold,
But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;
Winter austere forbids me to aspire,
And northern tempests damp the rising fire;
They chill the tides of Fancy’s flowing sea,
Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, 1773

The Road Not Taken – a poem by Robert Frost

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

The Friday poem is about choices. Immortalized on Hallmark cards and memorized by school children, it’s worth a slow read and reflection in light of a decision you might face.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost 1874-1963

‘Spent’ Poetry in Music by Amy Speace & Nielson Hubbard

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Amy Speace is a songwriter. A graduate of Amherst College and a former touring member of the National Shakespeare Company she now lives in East Nashville, Tennessee. In The New York Times article, ‘A Singer-Songwriter, Just Trying to Make Do’, she describes the economic impact of gentrification on the lives of artists and the inspiration for her new song, ‘Spent’.

“…many of us working-class musicians, painters, artists and writers live a precarious financial existence of our own choosing. When I got together with Neilson Hubbard, a writer and producer, to write a song about a financial turning point, it was easy for us to look around at ourselves and find our subject matter.”

Spent

Come take my hand let’s walk to the end of this rainbow

Do you think that we’ll ever know

Where to find all that gold

Once I heard someone singing a dream we could have and hold

Something of our own

A place to call home

We’re head over heels

In over our heads

We borrow and steal to pay the rent

How we gonna save any money when it’s already spent

Years keep rolling the houses keep falling like dominoes

They’re throwing up condos

The for the old

It’s not enough to hear your own song on the radio

When your credit is far below

What they need for a loan

We’re head over heels

In over our heads

We borrow and steal to pay the rent

How we gonna save any money when it’s already spent

Can we stay or do we have to go

Could this be the end of the road

How we gonna save any money…

We’re head over heels

In over our heads

We borrow and steal to pay the rent

How we gonna save any money when it’s already spent

Amy Speace/Nielson Hubbard 2015

‘The Workforce’ – A Poem by James Tate

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How often do you find yourself in negotiation with management and suppliers to acquire the resources necessary to meet your objectives?

In the poem ‘The Workforce’, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning poet, James Tate creates a dialog about the ‘resources’ needed to complete a job. It’s up to your imagination to visualize what these workers are trying to accomplish. To perform their task they need a variety of supplies…and women. We are left with the question: Are the women motivation to work or are the women workers who will help complete the task?

In a 2006 Paris Review interview Tate described his process: “I love to take a poem, for instance that starts with something seemingly frivolous or inconsequential and then grows in gravity until by the end it’s something very serious.”

The Workforce

Do you have adequate oxen for the job?
No, my oxen are inadequate.
Well, how many oxen would it take to do an adequate job?
I would need ten more oxen to do the job adequately.
I’ll see if I can get them for you.
I’d be obliged if you could do that for me.
Certainly. And do you have sufficient fishcakes for the men?
We have fifty fishcakes, which is less than sufficient.
I’ll have them delivered on the morrow.
Do you need maps of the mountains and the underworld?
We have maps of the mountains but we lack maps of the underworld.
Of course you lack maps of the underworld,
there are no maps of the underworld.
And, besides, you don’t want to go there, it’s stuffy.
I had no intention of going there, or anywhere for that matter.
It’s just that you asked me if I needed maps. . . .
Yes, yes, it’s my fault, I got carried away.
What do you need, then, you tell me?
We need seeds, we need plows, we need scythes, chickens,
pigs, cows, buckets and women.
Women?
We have no women.
You’re a sorry lot, then.
We are a sorry lot, sir.
Well, I can’t get you women.
I assumed as much, sir.
What are you going to do without women, then?
We will suffer, sir. And then we’ll die out one by one.
Can any of you sing?
Yes, sir, we have many fine singers among us.
Order them to begin singing immediately.
Either women will find you this way or you will die
comforted. Meanwhile busy yourselves
with the meaningful tasks you have set for yourselves.
Sir, we will not rest until the babes arrive.

James Tate, “The Workforce” from Memoir of the Hawk: Poems. Copyright © 2001 by James Tate

Dreams – A Poem by Langston Hughes

Eileen Kohan 1 Comment

Today’s poem comes from one of the leading literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes. As a writer his work included short stories, translations, children’s books and anthologies. But he was best known for his poems. His writing reflected the idea that black culture should be celebrated, because it is just as valuable as white culture, a historical sentiment relevant to today’s refrain of ‘black lives matter’.

‘Dreams’ was written in the early years of the civil rights movement. The words hold the promise of hope and signal the consequences ‘when dreams go’. The poem gives us encouragement to break through whatever roadblocks we encounter on the way to fulfilling our life goals.

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

 

 

 

This Is Your Life

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

Who is telling your story? Take a minute to think before you respond. It’s so easy to get caught up in the expectations of others that we often lose track of our own narrative, and after time it’s so buried beneath the voices of others that we need a team of archeologists to sift through several layers to find traces of our original thoughts.

It’s a basic question of ownership. Anna Quindlen describes it as “custody of your life” in her 2000 book,  ‘A Short Guide to a Happy Life’:

“When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living.

But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.”

At the beginning of a freshman seminar each fall I gave each student a simple black lined Moleskine notebook. The idea was that they would ‘write’ their life in ‘real time’, scribbling snippets of their new adventure in college and hopefully initiate a practice that  would catalog their days long after commencement. I did not want this to be an electronic record, but life captured in the written word with pen and paper with time for reflection.

There was no expectation tied to the gift of the notebook, and I’m not sure how many students continued the practice of keeping a journal after the first few weeks. What I do know, is that keeping a written account of our days allows us to return and read our story as it evolves. If we have captured our hopes and dreams on paper, we can watch them emerge over time and even pinpoint when outside influences begin to redirect our path. And that awareness will inform our decisions.

You are the only person who can write your ‘true’ story. Keeping a journal, writing your life in real time, is one way to claim ownership of your career and your life.

 

                                                                    

 

 

 

Week in Review – February 23 – March 1- From Hollywood to a War Zone

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This week began with the lively internet response to Best Supporting Actress winner Patricia Arquette’s call for support in the campaign for equal pay for women. Although Hollywood actors receive criticism for using awards acceptance speeches to raise the profile of a particular social issue, it’s their few minutes in the spotlight before the music plays them off stage. Many have worked their entire lives to achieve this honor and in the case of the film industry, there are some serious issues still needing attention when it comes to women’s compensation.

Reading the thread of tweets in response to Ms. Arquette’s comments starting on Sunday evening and carrying through the week,  it became clear that this issue is not confined to Hollywood. It demonstrated the growing trend of competing critical ‘internet bullies’ who went beyond the limits of civility in sharing their opinions.

In that vein, the blog on ‘internet shaming’ was my attempt to highlight an aspect of online discourse that has resulted in a number of people, seemingly unaware of their online visibility losing their jobs as a result of an incident.

We found an interview question that can be used equally by an employer or a candidate to uncover individual and organizational values with the simple: What was you best workday ever?

And finally, in the story of Lynsey Addario, The New York Times photojournalist, we found another question that we should be asking, just to take the temperature of where we are in our current position: Why do we do what we do?

At a point in our culture where our identity is increasingly tied to what we do, and that identity is displayed for all to see in our internet presence, we need to assess the truth of what we do at work and how we put a face on it to the world.

A 19th century poem of work

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When we think of work today, it’s often disconnected from manual labor and rarely would we describe it in song. Six years ago, author Matthew Crawford wrote of his experience leaving a white collar position to follow his dream, working with his hands.

“Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive.”

He concluded: “The good life comes in a variety of forms. This variety has become difficult to see; our field of aspiration has narrowed into certain channels. But the current perplexity in the economy seems to be softening our gaze. Our peripheral vision is perhaps recovering, allowing us to consider the full range of lives worth choosing. For anyone who feels ill suited by disposition to spend his days sitting in an office, the question of what a good job looks like is now wide open.”

With that in mind, the 19th century Whitman poem follows below in which workers express “the experience of individual agency” in song, “Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else..”

‘I Hear America Singing’

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the
deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing
as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the
morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at
work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Walt Whitman, 1819 – 1892

When being the #1 trend on Twitter can cost you your job

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

Since the inception of the first social networking sites there has been concern about the ultimate consequences of sharing private thoughts in a public space. I doubt the majority initially sharing their comments and photos imagined the possibility of losing their job as a result.

In those early days, in the first forays into private space, employers used interns to gain access to the online presence of potential candidates. Hiring managers obtained access to information that previously would be illegal to have about a candidate prior to an interview: race, religion, political preferences and sexual orientation. Screening via the internet allowed employers to take a short cut around accepted hiring practices.

As individual’s online profiles expanded to include multiple online platforms, the public information data base grew exponentially. The pressure to be online, 24×7, posting photos of meals, videos of pets and stream of consciousness tweets opened the door to abuse.

Employers continued to monitor the online profiles of employees and candidates with an expanded supply of information.

Rather than have a conversation, we text. Emotion is replaced at a distance with free associative updates. There is no editor, just ears to fingers to the vast space of online commentary.

In disassociating with emotion, we connect unaware of the impact of our words.

Laura Hudson writing in a July 2013 article for Wired Magazine comments, “Increasingly, our failure to grasp our online power has become a liability — personally, professionally, and morally. We need to think twice before we unleash it.”

If you have online followers, you have the potential for a career ending accident.

Jon Ronson, the author of a new book, ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’, previewed the content in a New York Times Magazine article on February 12. Recounting the stories of a number of people whose tweets slipped out of their control, he describes the role of public shaming that has become a new form of online entertainment and in most cases results in those involved losing their jobs.

Conor Friedersdorf proposes in his article, ‘A Social-Media Mistake Is No Reason to Be Fired’, “…a new social norm…Here’s what corporations should say in the future: “Sorry, we have a general policy against firing people based on social media campaigns. We’re against digital mobs.”

Until that policy takes effect, manage your online communications the way you communicate face to face.