How poetry launched my copywriting day job

The recession was still raging after two years of my pushing around a book cart [at Chicago's Marshall Field's department store], wearing a smock. There were no openings in the store’s art gallery as I had hoped. My thoughts of becoming a gallery or museum curator were quickly evaporating.

One of the exciting aspects of working in the book department was its regular public book signings, hosting such luminaries as novelist Gore Vidal, hairstylist Vidal Sassoon, conductor Sir Georg Solti, thinker and inventor Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller, baseball great Yogi Berra, former NYC Mayor John Lindsay, actor Bob Hope, chef Julia Child and many others. All arrived because they had just written a new book, be it fiction, a cookbook, autobiography or philosophy, giving my then callow self a chance to meet and interact with these successful writers from varied professions.

In addition to customers, certain employees from different departments would often gather around to purchase books and get them signed by the visiting authors. Among the regulars was Mary Ann, the copy chief from Marshall Field’s advertising department, who I also greeted and chatted up while she waited in line to get her books signed.

“Marshall Field’s has an advertising department?” I later asked one of my coworkers. “Where do you think all the newspaper ads come from?” one answered. “You mean all the ads in the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times come out of here?” I said. “Yeah, they don’t use an agency, the advertising department is in-house,” she answered. A light went on for me.

Before long, I found myself taking the escalators up to the advertising department on the 9^th floor, holding a small sheaf of my poems. I asked the advertising department receptionist if I could see Mary Ann. When she came up to small waiting area, I stood and explained how I was interested in working in the advertising department as a copywriter if they had an opening.

“We don’t have any openings now,” Mary Ann said. “In fact, we just hired a new person.” I suppose I looked a little downcast, but mostly embarrassed. Was I out of my league here? “Do you have an advertising degree?” she asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “I have a degree, but it’s in art history.”

“No degree in English?” she asked.

That smarted. What did I think I was doing up here! “I don’t have an English degree, but I’m a writer,” I said.

“You’re a writer,” she asked, dubiously. “Do you have a portfolio?”

“I have written these poems,” I said. “Maybe you can read them.”

“Poems?!” she said, looking incredulous, but trying not to be rude at the same time. She let me hand them off to her as I extended the sheaf sheepishly her way.

“I appreciate you coming up here, and I know you’ve been working in the store for awhile, but I’m not sure poetry quite matches up with what we’re trying to accomplish with our advertising copy,” she said.

I thanked her for her time, took the escalators back down to the book department and felt totally humiliated from making a fool of myself. I later avoided sitting anywhere near her if I saw her in the employee lunchroom, as I was embarrassed by any of my earlier suppositions that I’d be at least qualified to work in advertising. If I saw her getting onto an escalator, I waited until she was far enough away for me to get on, too, without her seeing me. And when she visited the book department on occasion, I gently tried to sashay the other way or find a reason to duck into the stock room.

One day, someone told me I had a call waiting on our interdepartmental phone. I walked over and picked up the receiver. It was Mary Ann. “Cynthia, can you come up to the advertising department sometime today,” she said. “I’d like to talk with you.”

“Sure,” I said. “I have a break in another half hour. I’ll stop up.” I hung up and tried to catch my breath. What did she want to tell me? I didn’t know what to expect.

When I arrived up by the advertising reception desk, Mary Ann again came out to greet me. “We have an opening in the copy department,” she said. “Someone just left. She took a new job at an advertising agency.”

“She did?” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“I read your poems,” she said.

“You did?” I said, not ever feeling she would even glance at them after I had handed the sheaf off to her several weeks before.

“They’re actually quite good,” she said.

“They are?” I said.

“I think you have potential,” she said. “And because you already know the store so well after working here a couple of years, I’d like to give you a chance if you’re still interested.”

A chance? Yes. As a copywriter? Yes. Yes, I was still interested! I started a couple of weeks later, sitting at a desk and typewriter in a room among 10 other copywriters, an all-women staff from whom I learned so much, hung out with after work and formed friendships with. I wrote newspaper ads about shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, purses, lingerie, even books. What a thrill to see my copy in print in Chicago’s newspapers. Almost as exciting as seeing my poems in print (but not quite!).

The break I received at Marshall Field’s was the start of my career as an advertising writer. This chance has continually fueled my livelihood over the decades. It’s still hard for me to believe even today that a small sheaf of poems, but mostly a generous woman willing to take a chance on me, has made such a huge difference in my life. Thank you, Mary Ann!

If there’s anything I have to share with others about this experience is this: When breaks come, be there for them. When the desire of your heart fires up, follow it. When opportunities and meetings of people arise, follow through. As the songwriter Steve Winwood wrote, “While you see a chance, take it!” Not everyone or even anyone will have the same experience I did, but you will most definitely have your own experiences, your own chances, your own opportunities. Be humble but upfront in pursuing them. Make the most of them.

The excerpt above is from my reference, memoir and creativity guide Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet. 

Note: Looking back, I sometimes feel like my experience was similar to the character Peggy Olson on the Mad Men TV show, ie. someone drawn from the office pool to dive into advertising copywriting. Four years and two jobs after Marshall Field's, I finally did land a job in an actual advertising agency. 

◦

How poetry launched my copywriting day job