Free-verse meetings

I'm a big lover of language. I think my course of studies in college (American Literature) and my profession (editor/journalist) are a dead give-away of that. Also my narcissistic obsession with things I've said and thought of, but that's neither here nor there.

The English language gets a bad rep a lot of times. What with its frustrating spelling and grammar rules, and the thing where any word can be any form of word. For example, just verbize some letters to have a new English word.

But language is great, and can be very poetic if you're willing to hear it. I just finished reading Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare (which was fascinating and incredibly entertaining), which combined with my discussion with Derek on the matter, has me ready to share with the world some of my poetry.

What I often do is, while in meetings at work (it actually started years ago in Ramona Silver's philosophy class), take notes as people talk. Most meeting attendees will do this, I'd imagine, but I don't do it to remember ideas or project dates (frankly, I rarely care) - I write down snippets, word-for-word, of what people say, usually as fast as I can keep up. Since people talk faster than I can move my hand, I end up missing some key words but the results of my selective editing are sometimes profound, often pretty and always fun.

I may one day publish a book of my collected poems, which I have tentatively titled "Meeting Poetry," (kind of a pun, and kind of direct) but I'm sure I'll think of something better after a career of not paying that much attention to what the bosses are saying. [edit: how about "Bored Room"?]

Here's two untitled poems from the summer I spent at Ascend Media (before I quit and went to Europe). I don't now know what the speaker's point was, but I've made them my own, and I know what they mean to me.

Early in the meeting
and then slow time

the strategy i have

how to fit that in?

what kind of cycle is he?

try to fit that all in

you're getting down
what kind of process

to stimultate and create
a limited commitment
tell them what I'm looking for

Later, in that same meeting
I’ve had success introducing myself
Even if its not that person
Sometimes I struggle
The attendees look
Pretty much everything

[Please note that I wanted readers to take away from this post the thought that I am kind of a bad employee and not that I'm super-creative. It's fun to do, you should try during your next meeting.]