As blank page stares at me
clock ticks in the rhythm of my heart beat.
Thoughts swarm like bees in a miniscule hive.
Shadows make patterns, hexagonal hive
they dance, trying to catch me
not skipping the beat.
I try to write, as my thoughts following the beat
feisty and seduced, like honey queen in her hive,
run from my pen, throwing syllables at me.
This poem will never be written: because of me, in this mindless hive, it lost its beat.
Cucumber, cabbage, cauliflower:
beheaded, without voice
swirl around
shorn of leaves, travel in pieces
without choice
bounce from ground to ceramic plate
Greens of the sweetness
curled above my moist tongue
test their fate
soft, crumbled blades dream of living
for a second longer, drunk
desperately among my teeth stuck.
Maja S. Todorovic
In this article, I have in depth described how poetry can be closely related to accessing our tacit knowledge, which in our business world can bring us lot of advantage. Tacit knowledge is represented by all our skills that are not only shaped by our education, but mostly through our life conditions, environment, culture, ext. We could say that tacit knowledge is everything undefined, inexplicable, unknown yet perceived knowledge by one person – usually rooted deeply in the subconsciousness and its largely based on any internalized information.
In the paper “Cooking up a storm: Flavoring organizational learning with poetry” author Grisoni L., argues that poetry can go a step further and actually
create a fusion between tangible, rational and explicit knowledge and tacit or implicit knowledge, providing opportunities to access new organizational knowledge; emotional richness, texture and flavored nuance to organizational knowledge and learning.”
In the mentioned paper, poetry is used as a creative research method and as such it contributes to development of new forms of knowledge. Poetry reveals what is hidden, beneath the ordinary organizational behavior, procedures and policies.
The case study for the paper is based on a group of 60 middle and senior managers from a single organization and they were asked to form small groups of three, share their stories and experiences from their working environment. Listeners would capture key words from these stories and together the small group would develop short poems using the haiku poetic form.
Here are some of the presented haikus:
Change risk move frightened
Thought safe, hidden fear revealed
Moved, sparkling sunshine
Ongoing concern – always
People in need, a start
Towards positive change!
Member of team
Develop role, career
Encouraged, valued.
After successful presentation of hauikus, conclusions that emerged are that working with poetry holds the potential to capture emotion and express the un-sayable with passion, truth and intensity. It provides a supportive underpinning to discussions relating to emotions, which form an important part of the organizational learning literature, surfacing and facilitating dialogue about these issues in a way that other processes may not access.
What’s also interesting is that we do create explicit form of knowledge where our skilled performance is delivered in new ways through social interaction. In this research paper has been shown that poetry is a wonderful medium for doing that. But, how else can poetry help us in business setting? Any thoughts? Please share in the comments below.
Knowledge
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Air is crisp,
biting my cheeks.
Loneliness is present.
Maja S. Todorovic
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Months for me are usually an easy ride. 28 to 31 days, it passes rather quickly.
But years are the long snakes that drag unpleasant months, we don’t want to remember and recall. In each year, there is an unforgivable month, snake’s mouth that just swallows all of your energy, time, existence and you end up wondering: “Life has a party on his own and I’m not even invited!”
I have that one particular year, when in March everything changed for me. In my country we call March Baba Marta (Granny Marta) and yes! March is a capricious, unstable, sometimes sleepy, sometimes rainy, rarely shiny: like an old grandmother who growls around trying to find her cane.
Through the window I could see the remnants of snow, her silver hair spread across the park. Small snowdrops, random teeth in that deceiving smile, were trying to turn their clumsy heads towards sporadic Sun.
That March wasn’t only the beginning of spring. It was suppose to be the beginning of new life for me. Instead, March brought the cruelty of the unknown, acridity of the uncertainty. Baba Marta was not in the mood.
April came like a young, playful girl, with the greenest eyes I ever saw; colorful dress wrapped her blooming body; teasing me, inviting me to join her; wanting me to forget awful Baba Marta.
Strangely enough, as the Sky was arranging tender clouds and Sun began to caress my skin, all I could think of is how warm was behind the cold, icy February walls.
You know of the love subliminal:
it’s like when your deep voice comes
from misty darkness
in waves of the love subliminal;
when every cell of my body rejoices
in the rhythm of drums
playing melody of the love subliminal;
when my tied hands spasm around
dance of the lonely body parts
living in the house of the love subliminal;
when only sound of your guitar exists
and purpose floats towards final silence.
Maja S. Todorovic
He is always there.
Whenever I turn, he is there.
When I stumble and fall
or when I cry and break a toy
he is there with his huge hands
to caress my face
and smile made of star pearls
to secure my peace
to put everything in place.
And there is she:
no matter how many broken bones
hearts she cradled with
her pillowed breasts
she is always there to light
my darkest fears
with teary eyes
Guardian of my dreams.
And there is her:
big, taller than house roofs
important picture
I looked upon so many years.
Family Brain
went for search for Pangea roots
simply despises rain.
And there is me:
in constant quest
for how, why, where and when
instead of just accepting
here is just than
with all gifts
with all flaws
my family is like
everybody else’s:
just wriggles through tight
life’s claws.Maja S. Todorovic
Lately I haven’t been writing much poetry and my attempt to improve that is by participating in this year NAPOWRIMO challenge. For the next 30 days I’ll be posting here, (along with my regular posts on the blog) poems I have written. Most of them, I suppose will be as a result of my free writing (that’s gonna be fun 🙂 ), but I will also try to respond to some of the given prompts.
Keep fingers crossed for me to endure in my writing this month and see how it goes 🙂
Day 1 NaPoWriMo
Strawberries
with first spring rays
Earth again tears, gives birth to
these red like blood, sweet, melting blubs
to satiate my thirst, sprouted taste buds;it’s like an eclectic kiss from the ground
comes every year back around.I wear it on my lips
remember it,
through out the winter,until green petals
hidden beneath thinned white coat
show their smile again
ready to fall in love.Maja S. Todorovic
Business in Rhyme 