Poetry is the distillation of thought expressed in a form designed to cut through the clutter of ordinary expressions and deliver a thought, a message, or an emotion that resonates with truth.
And sometimes humor.
Such is the case with the acclaimed poet and novelist John Kenney. His latest book of poetry, and another in his Love Poems series, is Love Poems (for the Office). Kenney, a long-time copywriter, has a gift for catching moments of truth in office settings. (Note: The book was published in 2020, just as the great migration to remote and hybrid work locations began.)
The book begins with Bertrand Russell’s quote, “One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.” While I am no expert on this mathematical genius and philosopher, I am guessing that Russell is poking fun at those of us who, at times, take ourselves too seriously. (Yes, guilty as charged.)
Such seriousness can lead us into winding ourselves and our teams around the proverbial axle too tightly. Such an approach only compounds organizational snafus. Martin Lindstrom, global authority on branding, opens his latest book, Ministry of Common Sense: How to Eliminate Red Tape, Bad Excuses and Corporate BS, with a story we have all experienced – contacting IT support when your computer has quit. The hitch — or should we say Catch-22 — is that to contact IT, you must use your computer.
Illuminating Us
Kenney does a great job in his poetry of illuminating how humans navigate the workplace, whether they’re away from it, in it, or somewhere in between.
Kenney writes in “Conference Call”:
Sometimes
I think better
when I pace
Around my small home office.
So that’s what I was doing
when talking through
the Q4 numbers.
I also tend to think better
when I am not wearing pants.
Or in “Annual job review, via Zoom.”
It was not my understanding
That your mother-in-law
would be on our Zoom call.
as I hadn’t realized you were staying with her.
Back in the office, there is “Open seating.”
I love the new open seating plan.
I really do.
I love having no idea
Where I am going to sit each day.
Or where others are.
Here is Kenney weighing on the jargon we use.
When you say
Ping me
I want to punch you.
Bio break, too.
It makes me cringe.
[continuing]
I would like to park this project.
And this job.
Now.
Sorry.
I have a hard stop.
None too serious
Work is very hard, and when a poet of Kenney’s talent and wit casts it in sharp relief, we nod and say yes before breaking into smiles and laughter.
The joy of Kenney’s poetry is that he does not take himself too seriously. As he writes in the mock interview that opens the book,
Q: What you have done in this book is take the mundane world of the office and turn that world into the mundane poems?
A: I think that’s exactly right.
This is another reminder that work is work, and while important, it is not all important. If we cannot laugh at ourselves, work—or life in general—is that much harder.