“Poets will no longer live outside the fringes of business, but will become increasingly commonplace within the heart of the corporation as cultural decoders, praise singers, mediators between management and labour and as a facilitator for forging a new paradigm for leadership.” - Mandy de Waal
She says this with a straight face. She believes it too, deliriously caught up as she is in the evangelism of Marketing. Mandy has in her trinity: the market as father, brand management as son and ‘poetry’ as holy ghost. One gets the feeling that her holy ghost is her wild card - ‘Poetry’ is just so hot right now.
Thankfully, we can trust genuine poets to evade this new career that Mandy is so excitedly marking out for them, because one of poetry’s many functions is to expose precisely the kind of speech she sells for what it has always been – rhetorical verbiage. Spin and praise-singing by their nature can never claim the edge of poetry’s diamond blade. No deal, Mandy. Whatever you put out in the name of Marketing Almighty won’t really be poetry, and those who devise it won’t be real poets. Deep down, you know this, Mandy.
(Besides, what corporation in its right mind would invite poverty and chaos by admitting a poet to the inner sanctum? And in any case, the vital elixir of attic dust wouldn’t settle well in gleaming boardrooms. You’d have allergic reactions all over the place)
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2 comments:
Hi Audrey
Regarding your post "Poet as Hired gun" which relates to a recent article I wrote on poetry in business"
http://www.biz-community.com/PressOffice/PressRelease.aspx?i=572&ai=9575
Fairly harsh comments, more so because it is patently obvious you haven't read the article, just the intro.
If you had read the article before glibly commenting on it you would have seen that it says that poets are the voice of the people and have long protested injustice by monopolistic and unethical companies, as was the case I cited with Ken Saro-Wiwa and Shell.
Further your saying that poetry has no place in business is nonsense.
Empowered businesses are bringing poets and praise singers into business as cultural attaches.
Sasol used praise singers as negotiators in recent labour disputes.
Brands are working with hip hop artists and performance poets to understand culture and youth marketing and how youth markets incorporate brands in culture.
Poets like David Whyte are working as leadership consultants to Bristol-Myers Squibb, American Express, Boeing, Kodak, Toyota and Nedcor and the like.
Why business has even had its first poet in residence. Peter Sansom was, until recently, the poet in residence at Marks & Spencer, the giant U.K. retailer.
Back home spoken word poets are used for corporate entertainment, marketing events and internal staff functions.
While this may affront you, given that you appear to have a romantic notion of purist poets starving for their art in rotten garrets, it is less than appealing to most of the spoken word and performance poets who live in cities in South Africa and who work as waiters in Wimpy between gigs. Or who punch tills. Or watch cars waiting for their next corporate gig so they can buy the time they need to write more poetry and polish their act.
Most of these people can’t make the rent, never mind put food on the table, and depend on work from corporates to avoid starvation.
So does this make the city’s great poets like Prophet JD, Kojo, Wesley Pepper, Verbal Spirit, Phehello Mofokeng and many many others not genuine?
Or does your comment only apply to those genuine poets who scribe between pedicures and manicures in Sandton, while living off the family trust fund?
If you worked or knew Johannesburg’s rising poetic talents (as I do) you would know that your comments are racially biased, ignorant and offensive in the extreme.
Mandy de Waal
mandy@soulcircle.co.za
Dear Mandy
Thanks for your comment. I’m honoured to have you here on my humble blog. If it makes you feel any better, firstly I did actually read that whole article (I have read a couple of your articles in fact), and not just the intro, before I wrote about it. It was tough, but I did it. Secondly, I do know a bit about the “rising poetic talents” of which you speak. For myself, I’ll wait to see exactly how “rising” they turn out to be – time will tell, as it so eloquently does with poets.
After I read your comment, I went back and re-read the article in question again just to be sure, in case I had been mistaken or something. Having triple-checked, I find that my post still stands firm and I have nothing to retract. Sorry for hurting your feelings but that’s that. Thank goodness I’m not intending to enter any popularity contests anytime soon.
Your racist allegation I will let pass, with gritted teeth to be sure but hopefully I’m grown-up enough to let such slights slide. We’ll see. It might end up getting me down a whole lot and then I’ll have to post on it. I don’t think so… but watch this space, just in case. I quite liked your joke about Sandtonite pedi/manicurees and their trust funds.
Sincerely,
Audrey
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