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Management
Posted: 26 May 2006
Word Count: 72
Summary: A response to a) the exercise in Poetry Seminar and b) my situation at the moment at work!! Two birds, one stone.
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'What would happen if I told her
what I thought?'
e mails fly across the ether
of a two metre wide corridor.
Post-it notes appear on desk tops,
mysteriously placed in negative time.
The enigmatic smile irritates.
'What would happen if I told her
what I thought?'
Policies are produced, politically
perfect. Reluctant minions perform dutifully
to fulfill the criteria borne of
Government committees. Somehow
life is drowning in this garden pond.
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Comments by other Members
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 joanie at 18:06 on 26 May 2006
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How has this uploaded twice??
joanie
<Added>
Sorted now - I've deleted the other one.
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 NinaLara at 19:06 on 26 May 2006
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I think the key to this exercise is finding a 'real' question that people really ask, which you have done brilliantly!
Your fist verse is wonderful - the rhyme of ether/metre and 'negative time'. I also like your movement to wider issues in the second verse. There are just a couple of things I am unsure about: why a garden pond? if the woman has disappeared, why are you addressing the question to her in the second verse?
Thank you for reminding my why I wanted to escape office life! Sometimes I am almost seduced back ......
Good luck with the poem and your wider issues at work!
Nina
x
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joanie at 19:13 on 26 May 2006
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Thank you so much for reading, Nina. I don't think she disappears in the second verse; I'm still addressing it!
'Garden pond' - I have no idea! Pond life, perhaps!
For heaven's sake, don't be seduced back!!
joanie
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paul53 [for I am he] at 14:15 on 28 May 2006
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The last line is excellent, like a potted summary of what passes for life these days. You always manage to put so much into so few words, which is a mark of fine poetry, I feel.
Emails across a corridor: my next door neighbour phones me instead of reaching from his front door to knock on mine.
You used the C word [committee] - aargh! Most of this past month has been designing new club membership cards. Give it to me and get on with it? Nope, run it past the committee instead. one evening wasted and we get 3 folk in on it, which is 6 possible routes of communication, therefore 6 hold-ups and log-jams. The result after a month is nothing whatsoever [though I've gone and done the cards by myself on the quiet].
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radavies1uk at 19:03 on 28 May 2006
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Heya Joanie
I get you on this, always having to deal with this type of stuff, constant due diligence, audit trails and targeted responsibility :)
I love "Reluctant minions perform dutifully
to fulfill the criteria borne of
Government committees." :)
Cheers
Bob
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 Nell at 14:41 on 30 May 2006
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Hi Joan,
I like the way you've used the language of companies and institutions for this - can't remember whether it's technically the passive voice or something else, but you know what I mean. The poem reads almost like a circular or office memo - a very clever way to set the mood of impersonality, of being one cog in some sort of machine - that really comes though.
I didn't get a sense of anyone having disappeared, just a feeling that the person you're thinking of is slightly removed/elevated/unapproachable, either in position or her personal vibrations. 'Government committees' is enough to send a chill down the spine! Hope things get better soon - thank goodness for the poetic safety valve...
Nell.
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 Elsie at 21:26 on 01 June 2006
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Hi Joan - I read this as two women, either side of the corridor - wondering what would be thought. There's a certain crispness about Policies are produced, politically perfect.
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which is..perfect.
Like the idea of notes posted in negative time - back dating in time - buck passing, and ass-covering perhaps? Amazing to get 'citeria borne' and that kind of 'speak' into a poem!
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joanie at 15:49 on 02 June 2006
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Thanks, Elsie. To be honest, I'm not sure what prompted 'negative time'; it's just how the notes appear as if put there by magic overnight!
Joan
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DJC at 09:07 on 03 June 2006
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Joanie,
I very much enjoyed this - I like the idea of being so near yet so far from someone, and I think these office environments do engender this sort of atmosphere. I particularly like the ending, which makes you think, and goes beyond the basic ideas expressed in the poem. Good stuff!
Darren
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