Saturday Good Reads - August 21, 2021

A large part of my career centered on executive speechwriting. Even when I was officially doing other things, somehow, I slipped back, or was slipped back, into writing speeches.  

Most corporate speechwriters read and watch as many speeches as possible, including those by elected officials, candidates, academics, CEOs, and other leaders. And we watch many, many televised addresses by presidents. They are always good learning experiences for a speechwriter. You will inevitably be asked by colleagues and the CEO you write for, “What did you think of the President’s speech?” 

 

I retired six years ago, and I’m no longer asked that question. But I watched President Biden speak Monday for two reasons. One, because like so many other Americans, I wanted to hear the President speak to the terrible events unfolding in Afghanistan. Two, I watched as a former speechwriter. 

 

These kinds of speeches are highly stressful for the speaker; every word, every gesture, and every facial expression will be mercilessly analyzed. These speeches are also highly stressful for the speechwriter. If a speech goes well, the speaker gets the credit. If it goes badly, the speechwriter gets the blame, usually behind the scenes but sometimes publicly.

 

I listened as an American, and I listened as a speechwriter. As an American I was surprised, stunned, and dismayed by what the President said. As a speechwriter, I cringed. I physically cringed. It got so bad that I couldn’t keep looking at the television screen. I listened to the end, hoping for something else. Something else didn’t happen. I was looking for leadership; what I heard was finger pointing and blame assignment. I was left with “Yes, it’s a disaster, but it wasn’t my fault.”

 

When CEOs or a presidents face a very bad situation partially or entirely of their own making but that they regardless have responsibility for, that speech Monday is one speech you never, never give. As a speechwriter, it is one speech you never, never write. 

 

Good Reads

 

Afghanistan

 

Assabiya Wins Every Time – Lee Smith at Tablet Magazine.

 

Lightning – David Warren at Essays in Idleness.

 

Afghanistan, the Pulpit, and the Myth of Progress – Rhys Laverty at Ad Fontes.

 

The West has lost its virtue: We have abandoned the taboos that held us together – Paul Kingsnorth at UnHerd.

 

Poetry

 

Dezső Kosztolányi: Happy, Heartbroken Song – Edit Gallia at The High Window.

 

The Return of Chaos – Phil Rogers at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Arachnida Sonnets – Paul Brookes at Fevers of the Mind.

 

Federico García Lorca predicted his own death in a poem – Dan Sheehan at Literary Hub.

 

Writing and Literature

 

James Lee Burke on Organized Labor, Corporate Evils, and the Plot to Dumb Down America – David Masciotra at CrimeReads.

 

Performative: How the meaning of a word became corrupted – Wilfred McClay at The Hedgehog Review.

 

'Grendel' at 50: How John Gardner’s Finest Novel Undermines His Ideas About Moral Fiction – Andrew DeYoung at Literary Hub.

 

Meeting Solzhenitsyn: Reflections on Tolkien – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Take Trap: A 75mph opinion in a 45mph zone – Samuel James at Insights.

 

Bored of the Rings – Alexander Larman at The Critic Magazine. 

 

In Praise of White Men: These men will do what others won't – Jack Cashill at The American Spectator.

 

Faith

 

Archaeologists Find Evidence of Biblical Earthquake – Aaron Earls at Lifeway Research.

 

Cornel West on Why the Left Needs Jesus – Emma Green at The Atlantic.

 

The Broken Church Light – Doug Eaton at The Fight of Faith.

 

Don’t Feel Sorry for or Fear for Your Kids; Raise Them up to Walk in Faith – Alex Cravens at Eternal Perspectives Ministries.

 

How Difficult Was the Book of Revelation’s Journey into the Canon? – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.

 

Me Before You – All I Want

Painting: Young Lady Reading, oil on canvas (1878) by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). 

The Poetry of Speechwriting

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. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph by Alem Omerovic via Unsplash. Used with permission.

In Praise of Reading Poetry

Like most of us, I read poetry – a lot of poetry – in high school and college English classes primarily because it was assigned. I was much more interested in fiction (Dickens!) and noir mysteries (Dashiell Hammett!) than I was in Tennyson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Elizabethans.

My attitude changed with T.S. Eliot and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” It was first published in 1915, and Poetry Magazine published it only as a favor to Ezra Pound. The editors were so uncomfortable with it that they placed it at the back of the issue. But it was our first great modernist poem, and it changed poetry forever. A high school senior, I read that poem, and I was mesmerized. I went to the local bookstore and bought a small paperback edition of Four Quartets (I still have it; it’s now more than 50 years old).

It was at work as a corporate speechwriter that I discovered the practical advantages of poetry.

To continue reading, please see my post todayat the ACFW Blog.

Photograph by Thought Catalog via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Writing Who You Are

The spoken word has much to do with how I write fiction.

My professional career in corporate communications spanned some 40 years. For most of that time, I was either a corporate speechwriter or not very far away from speechwriting. Even when I was serving as a spokesman for a crisis (a plant explosion, a train derailment, government actions upending a product and its market, to mention a few), I would usually have an executive speech assignment waiting on my desk.

It’s perhaps the toughest job in corporate communications (or any other kind of communications). You’re writing for another person. To do your job well, you have to write like that person speaks. That means you have to listen more than you talk. You must understand what’s on the audience’s mind. And you’re constantly moving across communication media – from the words you’re writing to the words an executive is speaking to the words the audience is hearing.

To continue reading, please see my post at Christian Poets and Writers.