Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

Literary Life

The Poetry of the Best Job You Ever Had

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It started with a phone call from a friend. “Did you see the job ad in the paper?” he said.

“What job ad?” I said.

“The city school district is looking for a communications director. You’d be perfect.”

“Do you hate me or something?” I said.

The city school district was indeed looking for a communications director. The district was in organizational chaos. A reform school board had brought in a management consultant firm from New York to reorganize the district. Schools had been closed. Central office staff had been laid off – some 800 people. Management of cafeterias, school buses, and other services was being outsourced. The management firm was doing what had to be done, but the district was so strangled by its own politics and so intertwined with city politics that it was impossible to try to make the changes from within. 

To give some scope to the problem: the district was staffed and resourced for 100,000 students. Officially, something slightly less than 40,000 attended. The real number was closer to 30,000. The day the management firm arrived, it was learned that the district was so in spending deficit that bankruptcy might be required.

And this was the organization I would be perfect for? Not to mention the ongoing issues, problems, and violence associated with virtually all urban school districts?

I ended up applying for the job. I ended up getting the job. It was the best job I’d ever had. It was also the worst. I was living the opening of A Tale of Two Cities.

It was performance poetry. It was improv poetry. It was epic and it was free verse. Everyone knew exactly how communications had to be run. 

I received daily phone calls from the mayor’s office, giving me instructions on what I was supposed to do each day. I ignored them, every single time. 

Poetry at Work

I learned about police radios and how the news media used them to track district news, like when a school board member threw a pitcher of water on a district official because she had seen The Wizard of Oz and knew that water melted witches. 

School board members leaked each other’s emails. 

My budget – which the previous year had been $1 million with a staff of 12 – had been cut to $20,000 and a staff of 1/2, and the budget had already been spent before I arrived. I had to invent communications out of whole cloth, with no money. 

There was never a work day without multiple crises. The work followed me home at night and on weekends – I once did a television interview on a Saturday outside the car dealership where my car was being serviced. I did another one in my family room. I did interviews at schools, meetings, on sidewalks, at lunches, in hallways. I was on television so much that a crazy anomaly developed: an aging, white male Baby Boomer became the public face of an urban school district. 

I was there almost nine months, the most tumultuous nine months of the district’s history, my career, and even my own life. I left because I could sense I was burning out; no one could handle communications in constant chaos. 

I did get to see and experience the best and worst of human behavior – and sometimes from the same people. I was personally tested for what I could handle, and I knew I had not been found wanting. I loved and hated that job, and I would never do it again. But I was thankful that I’d done it. 

From Poetry at Work:

First day on the job 

It’s only 9 a.m.
Channel 5 is waiting, cameras
filming in expectation
of a statement, any statement,
it doesn’t matter what it says;
school board members 
are leaking emails on each other,
the teacher on the phone 
is correcting my pronunciation;
the newspaper uses police radios
to follow the school district news
while the consultant is calling
about “a better brand for the schools”;
the parents protest is scheduled
for 5:30; the mayor’s office
is sending PR instructions
and I’m told the teachers have 
a sick-out today because they
can’t bank sick days anymore
and it’s only 9 a.m. and 
my first day on the job. I’m
going to love this place.

Top photograph by Mesh via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Poetry of the Crisis

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There’s nothing like a good crisis to demonstrate how little control an organization has. There’s also nothing like a good crisis to uncover the poetry in our souls.

A product cancellation was looming, the cancellation to be imposed by a government agency. Thousands of jobs were at stake, not to mention income, corporate stock price, reputation, and significant disruptions for customers. The crisis had been coming for nearly a year, contained within official communications between the government and the company.

As time passed, internal anxiety grew. In the communications area, we were a relatively minor player, except for the moment at which the crisis would go public. Then we would occupy the most important position in the overall situation. Blow it there, and the product would be destroyed in the marketplace.

What ultimately led to a successful resolution was a recognition that the government’s concerns had to be addressed. That moved the company from a “scorched earth and fight them everywhere” approach to “what can we do and offer to resolve those concerns.” The company, and the people responsible for overall management of the issue, reached deep into their souls, and developed what turned out to be a significant innovation in product management.

Poetry at Work

One of the top business managers believed the whole thing was a crock – that the government would never cancel the product. And he really didn’t like the communications plan, and the resources that had to be put into place to pull off what would amount to an internal revolution. He didn’t actively try to stop anything, but he made his opinion known far and wide in the organization, including that “no one would care except trade press.” That made our work a lot more difficult. 

The government accepted the company’s plan for the product. The news went public two days before Thanksgiving. It was a tidal wave of media interest. We had done well to prepare for an onslaught, and even then, it wasn’t enough. I lived on the phone with news media calls for the next two days – 12- and 14-hour days of saying the same things over and over. I was never more thankful for Thanksgiving, bit as soon as it was over, the phone calls resumed. Media interest finally calmed but continued for weeks. It was a very fine line that had to be walked – acknowledge the government’s concern as legitimate and simultaneously defend the product’s safety. 

Some weeks later, I was attending a dinner that was part of a training session for salespeople in a small town in Iowa. Some 250 of our sales representatives were in the audience, and the business manager who had been the chief naysayer was the dinner speaker. I didn’t know what he was going to say, but I was a wee bit apprehensive that the naysaying would continue.

It didn’t. What he said was this: “From the beginning, I believed this was a tempest in a teapot, that we were exaggerating things all out of proportion. I was wrong. I can tell you tonight that all that stood between us and disaster was a tiny handful of PR people. And they pulled it off.” I was the only PR person from the team at the dinner, and every face in the room turned to me.

A crisis had forced the organization to pull the poetry from its soul. It was literally an act of saving grace.

From Poetry at Work: “Crises are the poetry of surprise, upset, and human frailty. They are often the poetry of organizational change, the poetry of the disruption of the status quo. They can speak powerfully to an organization’s managers and people, and they can also fall of deaf ears. Crises expose our humanity, both flawed and good; our limitations and potential reach; our courage, and our fears. And they do all of these things simultaneously.”

This article was prepared for the Literary Life Book of the Month discussion group on Facebook.

Top photograph by Ante Hamersmit via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Poetry of Speechwriting

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The most solitary job in corporate America is not the position of CEO. It’s the position of the CEO’s speechwriter. It can be the loneliest job as well.

I spent about two thirds of my career in speechwriting. Forty years ago, no one aspired to be a corporate speechwriter. You would find people who wanted to be presidential or political speechwriters, but most people who ended up in corporate speechwriting did so by accident. In my own case, I was 25 years old and assigned to a huge issue threatening to disrupt the company. The executive in charge of marketing needed a speech on the topic. The regular speechwriters are unavailable, so I was asked to do it. My strength was, in this case, knowing the subject matter. I had written speeches for myself; I had taken a course in American speeches in college. But I hadn’t written for someone else. 

The speech went well. After the speech, the executive said, “I thought the audience was going to be jumping up and down on the tables. They told me that no one had explained how an issue in Washington, D.C. affected them and their businesses before, at least in language that made sense.” From that point on, he wanted no one else to write his speeches. I was moved to the corporate speechwriting group. 

Later, I was hired by another company to do general PR work, not speeches. But the VP for my division was unexpectedly put on the speaking circuit by the CEO. No one else in our group had experience in speechwriting. My career was becoming known as “speechwriter by accident;” it wasn’t long before I was moved to the corporate speechwriting group. The same circumstances repeated themselves for my next two jobs, until I was put in charge of corporate speechwriting.

Poetry at Work Poetry of the Workspace

Most communications people don’t like speechwriting, and it’s no surprise. Someone else always gets the credit for your work, unless it goes badly; then it’s your fault. You often find yourself dealing with temperamental CEOs and occasionally being yelled at. The hard work of writing a speech never happens in teams. What happens in teams is various vested interests wanting control or wanting to insert a favored program or idea. You don’t win popularity contests by refusing to cite someone’s pet project. It takes a long time, but eventually, if you’re good at what you do, people come to respect and rely on your judgment. Usually.

A speech is unlike any other kind of communication. It’s created on paper or on a screen, to be read or referred to, for people to hear it and understand it. You write for the eye to be read by the voice to be heard by the ear. It’s tricky.

I attended a number of speechwriting seminars and workshops, but nothing helped me like reading and reciting poetry. The best speeches have a quality of poetry about them – the rhythm, the cadence, the pace, the ideas coming at you in orderly but unusual ways. I relied heavily on three modernist poets – T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and Dylan Thomas. They were my guides and mentors. When I had trouble with writing, I turned to Four Quartets or “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” or “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”

I started writing key sections of speeches – the critical emotional parts – by hand, and often in free verse form. The best-known speech I ever wrote was first written almost entirely in free verse form. It helped make the executive famous and turned an industry on its head. Seven years after it was first given, four years after the executive had retired, requests for copies of the speech were still being received by the company. That’s unheard of in most speechwriting circles, including political; it remains unique in corporate circles.

And it was poetry that infused that work.

From Poetry at Work: “Speechwriting is a solitary profession, devoted largely to reading, writing, search, and study. It may be the closest thing we have today to the monastic life outside the monastery, except that at critical stages, the whole world seems to step in. Speechwriting requires ongoing interaction with executives, content experts, librarians, academics, PR people, attorneys, outside consultants, and even other speechwriters. To do it well, the speechwriter must manage all of those people and not let them get in the way of what the executive has to say.”

This article was prepared for the Literary Life Book of the Month discussion group on Facebook.

Top photograph by Alem Omerovic via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Poetry of the Interview

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It was the strangest interview I’ve ever participated in – on either side of the table.

A friend had talked me, or conned me, into interviewing for a job with St. Louis Public Schools – the director of communications. 

The school district was in chaos – an outside management firm had been brought in to run the district, schools were being consolidated and closed, services were being outsourced, central office layoffs had emptied more than half of the headquarters building, and protests by parents, students, employees, former employees, teachers and the teachers’ union were daily. School board factions were fighting each other through the news media. The news media was already showing up early each morning at the district’s administration building – knowing there would always be a new crisis to report.

And I wanted to insert myself into that?

I don’t remember all of the arguments my friend used, but they must have been convincing. I sent in my application, thinking that would be the end of it. But then I was called to come in for an interview.

Poetry at Work

On the appointed day, I showed up and was escorted to a conference room at the headquarters building. Eventually, 10 of us filled the room. Every 10 to 15 minutes, one of us was called out for the interview. I was the last to be called.

I was escorted to the district’s board room. Inside, three people were seated – the interim superintendent, who was a principal with the outside consulting firm; one of his consultants; and a district officer who would be the official boss of the communications director.

I was seated at the head of the table. The questions started, and I was immediately relieved to see they were using the behavioral interview method, in which you’re asked questions like “What was your greatest failure?” I was familiar with that kind of interview; it was (and still is) broadly used by corporate America.

The superintendent was seated to my immediate left, and I could see he was increasingly impatient. He was moving around in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table, and looked ready to erupt at any moment. And then he actually did erupt.

Throwing the interview question sheets in the air, he yelled. “Why the heck do you want this job?” Except he didn’t say heck.

That was not on the list of approved behavioral questions. The other two people at the table both closed their eyes, as if they knew this would happen.

“It’s not a case of why I want this job,” I said. “It’s more a case of why you need me in this job.”

And then we talked. He calmed down, and the others gradually joined the conversation. 

When we finished, the superintendent nodded and said I’d hear something within two to three days.

That was bizarre, I thought, as I drove home. I wonder which of the 10 of us will get sucked into that?

As I pulled into my driveway in suburban St. Louis, my wife was waiting. In the driveway.

“You have to go back downtown,” she said. The school district had called, and I was to meet with one of the board members. I drove back, and learned I was to be at a restaurant at 4:30 to meet with a group of teachers for a listening session. And let them meet the district’s new director of communications.

It was poetry at work, all right – the poetry of the totally unexpected. You think you’re reading an ambiguous poem liked “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and discover it’s turned into Alan Ginsburg’s “Howl.” The interview process had a form and even a kind of rhythm and meter about it. Until it didn’t. 

What started as formalist poetry had erupted into performance art.

The Job Interview

Tell me a poem, a story
of a favored poet or poem,
one who changed your life,
your mind, opened up
possibilities. Or made you
feel secure as your anchors,
your moorings, were removed.
Speak to me of your need;
describe the expectations
(are they great ones?), explain
how we soar together, toward
the sun, if not the moon,
tell me how I become
part of your larger self.

From Poetry at Work: “Interviews, like poetry, are ultimately about ideas, even though they are ostensibly about people. Behind the people in an interview are ideas about careers, employment, the future, and organizational goals and objectives. Behind a poem is experience, personal and group history, philosophy, how one understands the world, and even hope for a different or changed future.”

This article was prepared for the Literary Life Book of the Month discussion group on Facebook.

Top photograph by Marten Bjork via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Heart of Darkness: All This Stuff Happens in the Middle

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Someone forgot to tell Joseph Conrad. 

When you write fiction, you’re supposed follow the rule of thirds. The first third is the introduction of the characters and the development of the conflict. The second third is the development of the narrative, providing a deeper understanding of the characters and conflict. And the last third is the heightened pace of action leading to the climax and resolution of the conflict.

In Heart of Darkness,, after the first third of the short novel, Conrad threw the rule book out the window. All this stuff happens in the second third, offering no respite for the reader.

Marlow has located his boat and fixed it, and he’s now sailing upstream. On board are pilgrims. Also on board are some interesting members of the crew. They’re cannibals. He thinks they’re exercising great restraint or perhaps they’re just not hungry. 

At one stop, he finds a ruined reed hut. Inside is a book, An Inquiry into Some Points of Seamanship, written by a master in the British Navy. The book is filled with marginal notes. To Marlow, the notes look like code. He takes the book with him.

He continues to learn more about Mister Kurtz, the object of his journey.

There’s an attack on the boat from shore. A key crew member is killed. It’s looking grim for all concerned when the pilgrims (the pilgrims!) open fire on the jungle, scattering the attackers. Amid all the chaos, Marlow becomes seriously worried that, if the local population has started attacking, then Kurtz must be dead. 

He reads a report written by Kurtz for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs, finding the writing to be eloquent. He sees a small note written by Kurtz at the end: “Exterminate all the brutes!” So much for eloquence.

He meets a Russian dressed like a harlequin. The book found earlier turns out to belong to the Russian, and the “code” on the margins is actually notes written in Russian. Like everything else around him, the book and the notes contribute to the sense of unreality (Marlow uses the word “absurdity”).

Expecting at least some calm, the reader, like Marlow himself, is instead whipsawed at every turn of the river. The action does not stop, especially for the rules of writing fiction. There’s no nice, slow development of the narrative here; this is more like Raymond Chandler’s advice for writing: “When in doubt, have two men come in the door with guns.”

As he ponders Kurtz and the man’s writing, Marlow makes one of the most profound statements in Chapter 2 and in the entire book. Learning about Kurtz’s diverse family background, Marlow says, “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz.”

And there it is: Marlow’s statement about Kurtz, about Europe, and about Africa, all wrapped up in one concise sentence. He hasn’t even found or met Kurtz yet, but he already knows the meaning of Kurtz’s life.  Heart of Darkness isn’t a story about Africa; it is a story about European behavior in Africa.

Perhaps Chapter 3 will allow us to catch our breath.

This month at Literary Life on Facebook, we’re studying Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, in an edition that includes an extensive study guide by Karen Swallow Prior. 

Top photograph by Peter Oswald via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Heart of Darkness: “One of the Dark Places of the Earth”

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Five of you – friends, business colleagues, and the boss – are meandering your way down a river. It’s an early evening get-together, and you’re enjoying the company and the beverages. The sun has just set. It’s that early moment of dusk when the world becomes shades of gray. You’re feeling a bit mellow; it’s a bit of an escape from work and life in the city you just left behind.

Suddenly, you hear this: “And this also has been one the dark places of the earth.” No one responds, except perhaps for a raised eyebrow or a slight roll of the eyes. The one who said it is known for such things. He’s also known for telling long stories, and you suspect you’re in for one. 

You’re right; you are. It starts with a brief discussion of how the area you’re sailing through was first settled hundreds of years before, and what those first settlers – soldiers – experienced so far from home, right there on the edge of civilization. From that perspective, the area was a dark place. But from the perspective of the story you are about to hear, the real point of that sudden, startling, original comment, you will find yourself confronting the idea that it is still a dark place. This home you know so well, with its skyscrapers, museums, opera houses, art galleries, find neighborhoods, paved roads, medical facilities, and so much more is actually a dark place? 

And because you’re going to tell me a story about Africa? What?

I had the misfortune (or good fortune) of not reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad in high school or college. Instead, we read Lord Jim by the same author. The two books, originally published a year apart (1899 and 1900, respectively), have similar themes. But Lord Jim seems somewhat easier to read, and its narrative concerns the act of a disabled passenger ship by its crew. Heart of Darkness centers on the search for a man in the jungles of the Congo, Mister Kurtz, but it takes a while for the reader to figure that out, and a bit longer to learn that it’s about something else entirely. 

Joseph Conrad

Embedded in that first bit of dialogue, “one of the dark places of the earth,” is the theme of Heart of Darkness. As we read on, that statement seems to haunt the narrative. The narrator, a sea captain named Marlow, will describe how he had the desire to pursue such a career, how he gained the help of relatives, how he went to city that always reminded him of “whited sepulchers” (another kind of darkness), and how he gained a commission to captain a steamer on the Congo River, in that continent both stereotypically and forever known as “darkest Africa.” 

Arriving at his destination in the “dark continent,” Marlow discovers he will have to travel through the Congo to reach his boat. And he is struck of the sharp contrasts between the well-dressed Europeans and the Congolese people who are native to the region. Light, tailored clothes and rough, minimal clothes. Light skin and dark skin. Civilization and its seeming lack. 

The contrasts in Heart of Darkness are often so marked that the reader begins to understand something: Conrad might be suggesting that the contrasts may actually not exist. And if they don’t exist, the idea of darkness surely does, so where does it come from? And you go back to the first dialogue, “And this has also been one of the dark places of the earth.” Don’t forget the “has been” here; Marlow doesn’t say “was” but “has been,” implying that it still is. That the story of a jungle river journey is being told in the context of a leisurely sailing trip near London underscores that the darkness isn’t just in Africa.

And this is what Marlow is going to discover, as he begins his journey to find his boat and to find Mister Kurtz, the man whose name is on everyone’s lips, the European agent who seems to be the source of all wisdom and knowledge in this region of darkness. Marlow is going to learn that the darkness does not come from a place, a condition, or a situation, but that it resides in the human heart.

This month at Literary Life on Facebook, we’re studying Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, in an edition that includes an extensive study guide by Karen Swallow Prior. This post is a discussion of Part 1 of the short novel.