Profound Experiences

“For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions
(one has emotions early enough)—they are experiences.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

A Poetry Table is a versatile tool that can be used in innumerable settings and contexts. I have facilitated Poetry Tables with all kinds of groups: a classroom of seven-year-old students at a Montessori school; leaders in corporate and community leadership programs; for-profit, non-profit, public benefit, and governmental organizations at all levels; water treatment operators; and construction managers. I have seen the incredible impact reading and talking about poems has had on people and how it has changed lives. In an instant, individuals have had epiphanies and relationships have been transformed.

The following stories are about people experiencing the power of poetry and how it touched their lives. The names of the people are fictitious.

Customized Experience: Leadership Program

Several years ago, I was invited to facilitate a Poetry Table for a group of managers in a leadership program for a construction company. The company built large structures like embassies and highway interchanges. The conference was at a resort in Texas. Charlie picked “Courage” by Anne Sexton.

After small-group conversations, when we reconvened as a large group, I asked if anyone wanted to read their poem, share why it mattered, why they picked it, and how it related to their life and work. Charlie volunteered to read “Courage” and then told the group he had lost a daughter in a car accident. The third stanza was about the great despair; the strong imagery and the transformation of grief had touched him and hooked him. He could relate to that experience of grief and transformation. Charlie repeated multiple times how much he really loved the poem and how healing it was for him. It allowed him to express his most potent, pent-up emotions and release them.

At the same leadership program where Charlie picked “Courage,” Randy picked “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye. https://poets.org/poem/kindness

Randy was a tall, bald, big guy and looked intimidating, like a state trooper at a traffic stop. He told the large group he managed by fear, by intimidating people, and he had come, over time, to realize the limits and shortcomings to his method. He wasn’t approachable nor empathetic. His staff was afraid to ask him questions and be vulnerable with him. Randy admitted his way of managing wasn’t working anymore for him as a manager or as a person. It had taken him far, but not far enough. He wasn’t getting the positive results he wanted with people and didn’t like the person he had become. He wanted to have a better balance, to be kinder and more empathetic. The poem reminded him of how he wanted to be.

Customized Experience: Montessori School Classroom

A Poetry Table can be set with all ages, even with children. In 2012, I facilitated one with my son’s second grade class at his Montessori school. One girl picked “Don’t Quit.” The poem has been attributed to different people. Here is a version.

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must – but don’t you quit!
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

—Unknown

At her young age, Violet had already had multiple surgeries for birth defects. It was powerful to hear her read the poem first to her small group and then to the entire class, and talk about why she picked it and why it mattered to her. Her teachers and I were barely holding back tears as she spoke. It celebrated her persistence and gave her classmates a window into her struggles. 

Not all stories that emerge from Poetry Tables are about sorrow and grief. Communicating the things of which we are afraid or ashamed, or that we deeply care about or love, is not easy. When we share them and bring the private public, or choose to reveal what is secret and hidden, we may feel relief, freedom, and even joy. We can feel less isolated and more connected, and experience a sense of belonging.