Dissatisfied with how things are going but too drained to fight it? Three poems to reawaken your spirit
Sometimes, many times, we feel so worn down by life our fight has gone. It is easier to go with the status quo instead of challenging it. At certain times in our careers, this is a vital survival response. We might have child, elder or self-care needs that require our attention and we have to conserve our energy for getting through the day to day. We might have experienced a set-back and need some time to rebuild our strength.
But….
That niggle that our talents and capabilities are not being recognised stays as a backdrop to our lives. We know - absolutely know - that our potential is being circumscribed.
We can read a hundred books. We can reflect on a thousand thoughts. Sometimes, though, all we need are few exquisite words that reach our hearts and galvanise us out of our ennui and back to change-maker mode.
Here are three poems that do this for me. I hope they work for you.
For when we over-invest in the idea that we are all equal now
For when we over-invest in the idea that we are all equal now
Emily Dickinson 1830-1886[1]
They shut me up in prose
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet —
Because they liked me ‘still’ —
Make no mistake. Although Emily Dickinson’s poem was written more than 160 years ago her words remain relevant today. We may be confined to writing prose rather than poetry but we only have to watch how the media treats female politicians – or young women who appear on Love Island - to know that largely we still live in a world full of masculine-privilege.
This means that whilewe may not literally be put in the closet should our behaviours transgress acceptable norms, women who progress into management and leadership or who work in ‘traditionally’ male occupational spheres, have to manage an exceptionally fine line. This is between being seen as overly masculine (read that as ‘bitch’) or overly feminine (read that as ‘wimpy and ineffective.’) If we fail this balancing act, we face enormous penalties – being side-lined, excluded, disliked to name but a few.
For me, the value of Emily Dickinson’s poem is that it acts as a reminder that, despite the rhetoric and legislation for equality that now surrounds us, sexism like racism, like ableism, like ageism are real forces with real effects. The restrictions and limitations that we experience and that sense of out-of-place-imposterism are not the consequence of our own lack of confidence and other ‘inadequacies’ that need fixing – despite how many times we are told this is so. They are the inevitable result of a world of work that is still built around masculinity.
Listen to the full poem here and tune into the defiance and resistance expressed in the later verse. Too often we still find ourselves metaphorically confined to the closet and shut up in prose, but our imagination and our will cannot be confined. Don’t believe women have ‘made it’ and all is well. Your experience tells you this isn’t true and so does your ambition or your will.
2. For when our kindness and care for others is taken advantage of
Fire, Nikita Gill
Remember what you must do
when they undervalue you
when they think
your softness is your weakness
when they treat your kindness
like it is their advantage
You awaken
every dragon
Out of the kindness of your heart you took on that extra task because you knew it would help others out. You were asked next to cover someone’s absence and because you thought it was only short term – it wasn’t - you said yes. Twelve months later you find you are still being asked to pick up the slack in your department. You willingly do this because you believe in being supportive and collegial. You do, however, start noticing how tired you are from working longer hours and often times you are feeling stressed and anxious.
The most recent promotions are announced. One of your colleagues is on the list. You can’t help thinking this is someone who has done the least to support the inevitable drudge work of the department. They have certainly not picked up any of the slack, whereas you have consistently gone the extra mile to keep everything on the road.
There is an inkling of resentfulness in your mind that you try to quell because it does not fit with your values of believing the best in people. You ask yourself whether you are a fool to do all this extra work.
Don’t stop having those values of belief in others. But don’t quell the thought either that something is amiss. Listen now to the rest of Nikita Gill’s poem here and let that dragon awaken.
The dragon I am speaking of is the one I call ‘justified resentment’. Your feelings of a growing anger are impeccable. They are absolutely right because what each of us faces in such circumstances is pure and simple unfairness. Embrace those latent feelings because they come from a place of honesty and truth.
Nikita Gill’s poem urges us to express our power. She asks us to shout and scream and be angry at being so misrecognised. We are not an easy touch. We are driven by care and kindness that we know, deep in our hearts, will create a far better world. The alternative – selfish individualism that is too often rewarded – will not. There really are moments in our lives when we have to let the world know – in Nikita Gill’s words – what “hell looks like when it wears the skin of a gentle human.”
Shout for what you believe in in every way you can. We need you. The world needs you.
1. For when you have been knocked down so badly you are not sure you can stand up again
Still I rise: Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise
When you have experienced a knock-back, your confidence and self-esteem is at its lowest ebb. You are literally on the floor and wondering if you will ever pick yourself up again. Indeed, you think, perhaps it would be better that I simply slope off and am never heard of again. After all, the world has dealt me an enormous blow of rejection and has told me how worthless I am.
Whatever cruelties we have experienced at work – and organisations can be terribly cruel – Still I Rise is a hymn we should sing to ourselves regularly. It will keep alive the belief that once we have licked our wounds we will be back. Listen to the full version here, absorb its energy, wisdom and absolutely wonderful sassiness. And know that like dust and like air you will continue to keep rising.
with the warmest of wishes
christina
January 2022