Tweetspeak Poetry

Poetry at Work Day: Math, Science, the Moon (well, Asteroids)

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Poetry at Work Day 2016
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last four years celebrating Poetry at Work Day it’s that each year it looks a little different. Sure, many things stay the same. The day is always lush with haiku and limericks (even a few NSFW, ironically enough on Poetry at Work Day) and plenty of would-be odes to the end of the day. But each year also takes on its own little character, through no planning of anyone in particular, except perhaps the universe.

And when we say the universe, this year we really mean it. We were delighted to see such participation from the cosmos, or at least from those who work in the study of it. OSIRIS-REx, the NASA mission seeking sample material from the early Solar System on asteroid Bennu, posted three poems about its mission proving that writing form poetry (a cinquain, really) can in fact be rocket science:

Not to be outdone by NASA, OCR Science featured a triolet on petrology, seismology, and glaciology (with a nod to geometry):

In another corner of the STEM universe, Chris Hemedinger at SAS wrote about the intersection of programming and poetry, observing that haiku in particular may appeal to programmers because “it demands a specific syntax.”

There was a poem about chemistry:

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center got in on the botanical poetry:

And Shay Moser of Insight Education offered The One-Two Punch: Poetry and Nature Breaks featuring a Software Sonnet and a Hardware Haiku.

Please don’t ask me to use tephrochronology as an end word in a sestina.

The celebration of Poetry at Work Day unfolded in less scientific ways as well. Here are some of our favorite moments, starting with a little prickly Texas heat:

While Chemung County Historical Society’s Mark the Mammoth wrote poems all day that you could shake a tusk at:

Colleges, libraries and booksellers made a good showing (not to mention Twitter Books):

And I do believe that poetry would be nothing without coffee, coconuts, and donuts (and maybe even strawberry pancakes from my childhood’s Saturday morning breakfast spot):

On the other side of the globe, the Scots joined in with a haiku challenge:

Scotland’s Young Reporters for the Environment joined in:

And even UNESCO’s City of Literature Edinburgh, recommended you read some poetry at work:

Much of the spirit behind Poetry at Work Day is the encouragement to find the poetry that is already in your work, and your workplace. And we also encourage folks to bring poetry to work. Quite literally. Like this:

Of course, some people don’t take us quite so literally. At least, the Late Show with Stephen Colbert didn’t take literally our plea for a poem from the CBS salt mines.

And so, without a poem from Colbert, we, along with the Irish Poetry Shop, went back to our own sonnet mines and poems that don’t work.

Photo by 白士 李, Creative Commons license via Flickr.

Learn more about Poetry at Work Day

__________________________

Poetry at Work, the Book—by a Fortune 500 Leader

Free Ebook Poetry at Work Cover

Poetry at Work, by Glynn Young, foreword by Scott Edward Anderson

“This book is elemental.”

—Dave Malone

Will Willingham
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About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. Maureen says

    I love that the the science professionals joined in.

    ‘Twas Tuesday and Colbert delayed
    to set loose words for Poetry’s day.
    His mind on night work he kept away
    Aye, laddie, with mammoth and Irish we played.

    Reply

  5. Callie Feyen says

    I love these days. My students and I are reading Romeo and Juliet, and we are working on sonnets. I’d love to share some of their finished products.
    Looking forward to the next one!

    Reply

  7. Jody Lee Collins says

    Oh my, poetry at work has worked it’s way around the world and into the stratosphere. I found the lines from Carolyn Duffy on the poster from the folks in Scotland were very touching. (Probably because we went to see ‘Brooklyn’ last night..)

    What a delightful wrap-up! Well done, Tweetspeak team!

    Reply

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