Copyright (c) 2000 by Michael Finley

For years I wrote poems the way everyone did.

I would sit under a tree and reflect on something. When something occurred to me I would write it down, make it rhyme, then dash it off to a literary magazine, which would pay me for the poem.

On a good day of reflecting, you could make $500, if you were a reasonably good typist. The market was strong, and the pay was good. The cliché simile in those days was "as sound as a poem."

But things changed. Masses of people turned off to poetry and turned on to television. Many millions of readers dwindled to a few million. Writing schools, seeing a buck to be made, proliferated, luring unsuspecting poets in, without telling them that their markets had disappeared.

Computers, photocopy machines, websites, ballpoint pens and unrhymed verse made poems the province of the riffraff. Rhyme, alliteration, and assonance vanished almost overnight.

Anyone could do the new poetry. But no one could make a living at it.

You see the results everywhere -- a drifting army of unemployed poets, hanging around railyards and bus depots, willing to do just about anything for a nice salad.

The best went into whatever field held allure for them -- management, ophthalmology, small motor repair. The rest taught.

As an upper-echelon poet, I would like to say I weathered this economic storm unfazed. But even I was affected. First, my income sagged. Eventually I had to sell one of my homes; fortunately, it was one I had never visited.

Over time my Rolodex of favorite editors shrank, as one greybeard after another was driven into other professions, either let go entirely or replaced by editors indifferent to poetic form.

I tried to fight back. I now reflected twice as hard as I normally did, hoping to make up the deficit in volume. At one point I joined the Poets Union, but I could not bear the environment of collectivism.

Finally I came up with my own adaption, which is to form strategic corporate poetry partnerships. My poetry agent scans the business headlines. When we identify a suitable partner, I reflect about them and write a poem that meets both our needs -- it makes a compelling observation about the natural blessings of life and imagination, plus it provides attractive product placement for the partner.

The new approach has proved a stellar success. I have successfully partnered with companies in numerous industries now -- MetLife ("Actuarial Tables," Antigonish Review Vol. 47, No. 3; Dow Jones ("Head and Shoulders," Massachussetts Quarterly; Spring 1999; and Intel ("Silicon," Poetry California, February 2000). Three short poems, $115,000 in fees. On the printed page the corporate poem is no different than a noncorporate poem, apart from the logo.

Some readers -- there are always skeptics -- predicted that partnering would affect the poet's voice and diminish the poem's authenticity. While I can assure them this has not occurred, and that my corporate verse is as authentic as anything I've ever written, the proof is in the eating.

To that end I provide you, with the permission of Summit Brewing Co. of St. Paul, Minnesota, this concluding and suitably profitable poetic postscript. I asked myself, if John Keats were to endorse a brand of beer, how would he do it? I think it would go a little like this:

 

On First Uncapping Stutrud's¹ Brew

   Much have I travell'd in the realms of ale,
         And many handsome hops and bitters quaffed;
         And many oaken kegs have I been fore and aft,
     Which oracles bound to Ceres² do foretell;
     To the western wind have I hoisted seven sail,
         Where mighty Dionysus³ shook and laughed;
         And begged a token of hearty Falstaff, ⁴
   Like a free card for getting out of jail. ⁵
   How comes it that this beverage so clear

  Obtains the sacred ripeness that is all,
   An effervescence pyrotechnic to the ear --
       I drink it down and hear the holy call.
       For I have supped with the gods of beer
       Silent, on a Summit⁶ in Saint Paul.

 

______________________________________________________

1. Stutrud; Mark Stutrud, brewmaster for Summit Brewing Co., St. Paul, MN, considered by many to be the most talented in North America

2. Ceres; Greek goddess of grain, and endower of full-bodied goodness

3. Dionysus, Greek God of wine and libidinousness

4. Falstaff, a recurring comic figure in Shakespeare's histories; renowned for his lusty appetites.

5. Ref. To the game board Monopoly,® Parker Bros.

6. Summit Pale Ale, "So smooth, satisfying!"

 

To read more corporate poetry, go to http://mfinley.com, or write Mike at mfinley@mfinley.com