Re: Business Poetry

[Sara Kimball <skimball@uts.cc.utexas.edu>]

Mill, I don't know how  many of your engineers are planning on going into
the managment/administration end of things, but if they, or anyone on the
list is interested in a great poem about the frustrations of
administration, I'd recommend Yeats's "The Fascination of What is
Difficult."  I find it a comfort to mutter and growl it when I'm feeling a
bit fed up with an activity that Yeats described as having "dried the sap
out of my veins and rent spontaneous joy and natural content out of my
heart."  ... of course it's about beeing a *poet* trapped in an
administrator's life and not about an engineer being trapped in ditto.

For interesting engineering images I'd also recommend Richard Wilbur'
"Speech for the Repeal of the McCarron act."  The poem itself is about
freedom of thought, but it calls the destruction of structures in war time
("torn up railway tracks," rose windows "shattered by bomb shock, the
leads
toussled, the glass grains broadcast") "no great trouble" in comparison
with the destruction of the former.  It also compares a free society to a strongly
constructed spider's web that "bellies in the wind" allowing the spider to
ride things out. 

I dunno, maybe these poems are a bit far fetched, but they appeal to me.

Sara Kimball 

On Fri, 1 Nov 1996 MillB@aol.com wrote:

> Greetings!
> 
> I'm currently working with some business/engineering majors who have to get
> through a literature class.  I have been struggling to find work that relates
> to. . . er. . .um. . .their world.  
> 
> Very Accessible, if possible.  
> 
> What I'm looking for are poems and short stories which deal (indirectly or
> directly) with work ethics, working people, the oil business, engineering,
> pipes and gadgets, business meetings, offices, etc. . .
> 
> If anyone has any GREAT ideas, please send them to the list!  As an example
> of what I am looking for, the last poem I showed them was "The Unwritten" by
> WS Merwin. . . I got them interested by saying that it was a poem about a
> pencil.  I also used a short story called "Orientation" which was in the Best
> American Short Stories anthology.
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> Mill
>