Poets and Poems: David Whyte and “The Bell and the Blackbird”

David Whyte is my unexpected workplace godfather.

Whyte, a poet, consultant, speaker, and even tour guide, published a book in 1996 called The Heart Aroused : Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America. He asked a question that no one else was asking at the time: can poetry save the corporate soul?

My experience at the time was workplace convulsion after workplace convulsion, the bad and the good of the old ways swept out replaced by what was often and only the bizarre. And I mean bizarre – meditation rooms (bring your own pillow), senior executives playing with Legos, wandering minstrel and choral groups serenading employees in their offices, self-directed employees (like the one who decided a great job was to read novels for seven hours a day and teach them for an hour at lunch in the corporate cafeteria). 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.