How poetry launched my advertising day job

I found this image of a typing table described as "antique." It is the same style of table and manual typewriter I used during my first advertising job at Marshall Field's!

The recession was still raging after two years of my pushing around a book cart, wearing a smock at Marshall Field’s department store, post college graduation. 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 each 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 a couple of times 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 ad agency. The advertising department is in-house,” she answered. A light went on.

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.”

“You don't have a 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 the 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 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!

Excerpted from my creativity guide, memoir and reference "Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet"  

◦

How poetry launched my advertising day job

The night Robert Bly got "tarred-and-feathered"

 “…my Chicago had its moments: the Surrealist attack on Robert Bly that ended in a fistfight and the arrival of police.” ~ Paul Hoover

One four-below-zero winter’s night, I took the “el” train from my studio apartment in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood to the Body Politic in Lincoln Park. It was the mid-1970s. On that bone-chilling night, a high-impact though little known incident in Chicago poetry history took place. 

An older poet from Minnesota, Robert Bly, was making a special appearance at the Yellow Press Readings at the Body Politic Theater. I had never heard of him before. In years hence, he became well known as the spearhead of the American men’s movement, and author of Iron John: A Book About Men, a national bestseller. 

The room’s floodlights and brightly painted wall behind a small dais stage radiated welcome warmth against the bitterly cold night. But still shivering from my trip down there on the “el,” I kept my coat and cap on the rest of the evening. Before long, Robert Bly moved to the center of the dais. The lighting above Bly’s head appeared as bands of yellow, light orange and salmon enveloping the man in a fiery glow. He wore a loose-fitting white shirt and faded blue jeans. His white hair was mid-length and flowing, his face clean-shaven. A quiet comfort spread through the room as the frozen streets outside enclosed us in their silence.

Bly began. I found his poetry accessible, nature-driven, and dealing quite a bit with his home state, Minnesota. Unlike other readers, and in the fashion of a teacher, he repeated each brief poem twice so we could more fully absorb it. Soon, he donned an elaborate animal mask.  

Then, according to poet Al Simmons, “Five of them…four men and a women… approached him from each flank, and the woman came down the center aisle.” 

“We thought it was part of the show,” said poet Terry Jacobus. “Then the group knocked host Richard Friedman out of the way.”

Simmons continued, “Bly sat perfectly still as two of them each poured a five-pound bag of white flour over his head, then stood back while the other three began shooting Bly with water pistols.” 

I had remembered it as bags of powdered Sakrete. Jacobus mentioned something about “confetti.” In addition, Bly received one or more pies-in-the-face. It looked like pie plates filled with shaving cream to me (Three Stooges-style?), while others recall it as custard.

Poet Michael Anania, by circumstance, was busy giving a more polite poetry reading that same night on the other end of town at the South Shore Cultural Center with poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki Madhubuti, and Leon Forrest. “I was the token white guy,” he said. Although he missed the Bly reading because of this previous engagement, he had quickly got wind of the concurrent event and heard that Bly’s “tar and feathering” ingredients comprised flour, eggs and milk. 

Getting back to the Bly reading crashers, just who these culprits? None other than a group who called themselves the Chicago Surrealists, more of a political than artistic enclave, who published a magazine at the time called “Arsenal.” Among them were poets Penny Rosemont and her now-late husband Franklin Rosemont. 

It was of the latter that the late poet Paul Carroll wrote, “One hulking surrealist, dressed in Army-Navy store black, gargled at the audience that theirs was retribution for some recent review Robert had written in the New York Times, daring to criticize their hero, Octavio Paz.” 

I later learned that Bly was one of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s translators. Neruda, it turns out, who was politically a communist, and had been sympathetic to the Soviet leader Stalin. It was Stalin who had persecuted the Surrealists during his regime. For this and the crime in the paragraph above, Bly was doubly guilty in the eyes of the surrealists. Their goal that night? To “tar and feather” Bly in a shake-and-bake call-out for his transgressions.

Bly stood without a word against his attackers. Then, according to Paul Carroll, “Several leapt from the audience, led by poet and bookseller Douglas MacDonald, who gave the bums the rush out.” Also, the Stone Wind poets, Simmons, Jacobus and Henry Kanabus charged the stage. Simmons said, “There was a skirmish and we pushed them out of the theater…into a vestibule that became pitch black when the lobby doors shut behind us.”

According to Jacobus, “We wrestled, punched and landed out on Lincoln Avenue. The cops were called.” In the dark, someone (not Jacobus) inadvertently had clocked Penny. Another Surrealist ended up in the gutter, and at least two had bloody noses. “We almost got arrested for poetry,” said Jacobus.  

The defenders “…ducked back into the theater, to cheers and a standing ovation,” according to Simmons.

Meanwhile, the evening’s hosts had come to the aid of Bly to guide him out of the spotlight into the nearest bathroom. Once quickly cleaned up, Bly returned to the dais and finished his reading. Carroll said, “Robert Bly’s performance was a tribute to the spirit of poetry itself. It was not fanciful to say that we heard one of the voices of Orpheus speaking, at times, through him. The show went on for hours and hours. It should have gone on all night.” Afterward, it was drinks all around at the Oxford Pub next door. 

All I really knew was that both Neruda and Bly were poets I admired. As well, I later came to personally meet and appreciate surrealists Penny and Franklin Rosemont, as honorable people, poets and publishers of the great Wobblie poet and friend Carlos Cortez. I always liked the Stone Wind guys, too, and had visited the Evanston home of Douglas MacDonald more than once with friend Effie Mihopoulos. Among such poets, who can choose sides? I was never quite sure if the small Surrealist group’s “statement” was as keenly directed as they had calculated, but I’ll never forget that night. ##

~ excerpted from the nonfiction/memoir/creativity guide Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet

◦

The night Robert Bly got "tarred-and-feathered"

Short poems, long memories. A tribute to haiku pioneer Gayle Bull

Sometimes it pays to wander at random, then be surprised at what awaits you. Ten years ago, I was the second writer-in-residence at a new program at Shake Rag Alley, a cultural center in the small, historic town of Mineral Point, Wisconsin.

Located in southwest Wisconsin, Mineral Point was founded by miners from Cornwall, England. Its homes and businesses, crafted mainly of a yellowish stone (I believe a form of sandstone), have been carefully restored, with many buildings pre-dating statehood. Pottery studios, art galleries, quaint hotels and unique restaurants dot the landscape of this town of 2,500 or so.

Three hours from my home base in Chicago, I was in Mineral Point for a week with no particular duties carved out for me but to write poetry, walk, think and meditate. However, it was early May, still off-season for many businesses which were either still closed until summer, or had shortened hours. That was a good thing; to be in a place and time with few distractions and get more writing done, which I did. Nevertheless, I also needed to take breaks and breathe some fresh Wisconsin air in between writing sessions.

On one particular walk, I wandered into Foundry Books, a little haven on the edge of town with new, but mostly used books. For some reason, I hadn’t been aware that Mineral Point even had a bookstore. The magnanimous proprietor Gayle Bull greeted me, and I told her I was mainly looking for books of poetry. After a chat, she learned why I was in town, and asked, “Have you ever been interested in haiku?” I think I answered something like, “A little. It’s something I teach children every once in a while in school workshops.”

She showed me an archive of haiku books and periodicals dating back to when she and her late husband Jim Bull edited the first American haiku magazine, American Haiku. Way back in the recesses of my memory, I remember submitting some “haiku” to this publication when I first started writing and being rejected. Ah, yes, and it was located in Wisconsin. But Gayle Bull’s warm demeanor and open enthusiasm for the subject made me forget about that. 

She opened up various issues of the magazine and pointed out haiku that resonated with her. Some haiku were three lines, some two and some even one line (called a monostitch). And none had to be the five-seven-five-syllable, three-line haiku most of us are familiar with. When haiku reached the American shores, she explained, haiku took on a new direction. The five-seven-five (17 syllable) format was perfect for Japanese, which uses more syllables in its words than in English (haiku expert Lee Gurga feels that American haiku should usually be no longer than 12 syllables). And counting syllables isn’t really the point. The point is to create two separate images that juxtapose, that cause that haiku aha! moment in the reader. 

After meeting Gayle, I made periodic trips back to Mineral Point over the following years, to take part in dining-room-table haiku workshops in the back of the bookstore where Gayle lived, to attend haiku lectures and, also accompanied by my poet husband Carlos Cumpian, the occasional Cradle of American Haiku conferences headquartered at Foundry Books, which hosted haiku events around town at various locations. 

I felt as if Gayle took me under her wing and nurtured my direction in this special genre, new, surprisingly deep, and exciting for me. I slowly began to write “real haiku,” versus the children’s workshop 5-7-5 syllable counters, made new friends among the close group of haiku aficionados and began to get haiku published in magazines such as Frogpond and Bottle Rockets. While I still mainly write conventional poetry (maybe not-so-conventional), haiku holds a special place for me as well these past years.

I owe much to my friendship with Gayle, who unfortunately passed away in 2019. I will always remember her fondly and have nothing but a grateful heart for who she was. Her birthday is August 8. And the good news is, haiku lives on in Mineral Point! 

Read more about Gayle Bull, Foundry Books and. Mineral Point in my memoir/reference/creativity guide Frugal Poets’ Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren’t a Poet.

◦

Short poems, long memories. A tribute to haiku pioneer Gayle Bull

Poets! Do at Least One "Poetry Thing" Every Day

As poets, we probably know it's important to write every day. But even while understanding such a wise guideline, if you're like me, you probably don't write every single day. Whether it's because of work, commuting, childcare, domestic duties, or keeping up with friends and extended family, the time you need to sit down without distractions to write may be limited. Sometimes I don't even feel like writing. I'd rather work on artwork, read or catch up on the latest on Netflix. Or perhaps take a much needed nap.

So I made this new rule for myself. If, on a certain day, I don't work on a poem, I vow to at least accomplish one "poetry thing" that day.  Wait. What is a "poetry thing?" In my estimation, it could be one of the following:

~ Read poetry from a poetry collection or magazine

~ Submit poetry to a publisher

~ Attend a poetry reading, live or virtual

~ Edit an old poem

~ Promote your latest published poem or poetry collection on social media

~ Promote your fellow poets' latest published poem or poetry collection on social media

~ Give a reading at a live or virtual open mic

~ Attend a virtual poetry event

~ Attend an online poetry workshop

~ Do research and/or write ideas/notes for a new poem

~ Comb your personal journal for ideas for new poems

~ Go to the library to check out the new poetry collections

~ Follow a writing prompt from an outside source or a book to start a new poem

~ Select poems you've written that might make up a new poetry chapbook or full collection

~ Or just write a new poem 

Why do any or all of these "Poetry Things?" If you call yourself a poet, you need to live a poet's life! And life is lived every day! Can you name another "poetry thing" that doesn't appear on the list above? Please share. I'd like to hear from you. With so many options, there's no reason not to do at least one "poetry thing" every day! 

##

◦

Poets! Do at Least One "Poetry Thing" Every Day

Poem: When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses

An earth-shaking story that barely appears in any Western news source is evolving right now in China along the Yangtze River. Here is a "what-if" poem of what might happen in the near future.

When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses

On that terrible day, after months of rain,

when the Three Gorges Dam collapses,

it will spew 100,000 blue whales of water waiting

behind it like a tsunami wave down the Yangtze,

knocking down skyscrapers as shoddily built

as the dam itself like bowling pins,

erasing great cities of Wuhan, Nanking 
and Shanghai off the world map.

On that terrible day, and the days that follow,

600 million people will either lose their lives,

lose their homes, lose their livelihoods,

lose their minds, or lose their patience with

a government that cut corners on

the largest hydropower project in the world.

On that terrible day, they’ll also recall days

of its too quick construction,

of its more than mile-wide failures

of poor rebar, of substandard concrete

not connected to bedrock,

but with so much water held back

by its massive shoulders

it lengthened the day and flattened the poles.

On that terrible day, they will blame Tibet,

where headwaters of the Yangtze spring,

on that terrible day, they will blame Western

engineers who pointed out flaws of the project

and were called racists because of it,

on that terrible day, they will blame 
Mao Tse-Tung, who, after the great floods of 1949, 
brought Communism to China 
and reseeded an old idea

to build a Three Gorges Dam 
so it would never happen again.

But on that terrible day

it will happen again,

on that terrible day, and the days that follow,

not only will China lose countless souls,

not only will China lose 
its formidable face forever,

not only will China be 
thrown back to a medieval past,

but countries of the whole world 
will also groan in pain

from the repercussions of its ancient 
and once-wise brother 
sold out to the mythology

of short-term gain.

~ Cynthia Gallaher (July 19, 2020)

◦

Poem: When the Three Gorges Dam Collapses

Thanksgiving Poem: Beat of the Pumpkin Drum

big orange, Illinois,

rotund autumnal 

heartland center,

pumpkin territory.

August’s thrum begins to drum

against tough hides

of pumpkin acres,

the ripening signal.

tiniest ones line window sills 

along back porch halls,

while grandest usher

Cinderella on route to the ball.

the beat continues through harvest time,

as burners heat for packing plant’s

canning extravaganza,

on behalf of la calabaza.

raza rise from the south,

close to pumpkin’s native birthplace,

up to its new home north, factory rat race,

with 10 weeks of good wages in the bargain.

heat and jargon turn up pressure gauges,

the beat rages 

over 12-hour days, seven a week,

pumpkin gold catches its fall winning streak.

men and women line up

for cleanin’, slicin’, sortin’ 

up here in Morton, Illinois, 

not a mecca of salt,

but perhaps sweat and tears,

where workers keep returning

after 10 and 20 years.

they’ve even built a church around it

in old Soledad,

with money from 

la calabaza, el norte and God.

by November, raza again heads south to Mexico,

the Morton factory turns quiet,

while throughout the USA, another riot,

as cans of pumpkin fly off grocery shelves.

creamy, cooked and canned,

the forefront of another Thanksgiving,

lending America a hand,

to make a pie, then get on with real living.

it’s the grand finale course in West Virginia, 

Washington, Wyoming, with ample room for 

another slice of pumpkin pie, then back to video games, 

hour-long naps and sinks full of smeared-up dishes.

how is it that no one asks or wishes

to know where pumpkins start out

or who brought them to the end of the line.

please pass the wine.

after the last empty can’s discarded

and final hunk of pie digested,

the workers will still be fully vested,

with another hefty slice of cash,

for their annual 10-week drill,

when the autumn beat 

resumes

in Morton, Ill.

##

                           ~ Cynthia Gallaher

"Beat of the Pumpkin Drum" originally appear in Big Scream magazine and as part of my full collection Epicurean Ecstasy: More Poems About Food, Drink, Herbs & Spices (The Poetry Box, Portland)

◦

Thanksgiving Poem: Beat of the Pumpkin Drum

Sestina poem for Bernie Sanders

Way back in 1986, poet Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem about Bernie Sanders. I am no Allen Ginsberg, but today I offer a recent sestina poem I wrote in Bernie Sanders' voice (words my own, but inspired by Bernie).

A sestina is a poetry form comprising six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet. All stanzas have the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern. All six words appear in the closing three-line envoi.

The six words in this poem are: grassroots, billionaires, our, wages, street, debt.

##

Bernie Sanders Sestina

(in the voice of Bernie, words are mine)

was it worth a lifetime dedicated to grassroots

ideals, while one percent of our wealth lies in billionaires’

hands? I’m old, you’re young, it’s Our

Revolution, to speak up for higher wages,

to call out the special interests, Wall Street,

the cushy expungers who’ve left us in debt.

it’s not to Congress, but to you I’m indebted,

let’s take the grassroots

to the White House, take our voices into the streets,

hold onto what’s valuable save the greed of billionaires,

max up the minimum wage,

declare health and education ours.

will it take the time Egyptians built the pyramids for our

younger generation to pay off their student debts?

can we expect wage slave owners to automatically offer decent wages?

would a skyscraper bow down to its landscape of grassroots?

could a pseudo-billionaire promise to make us all billionaires?

will this highway to hell we’re on pave over our hometown streets?

to comprehend our grave issues doesn’t require street

smarts. Or a math degree to see the tatters of our

economy. There’s been an uptick of billionaires,

yet with heads barely above water, the body politic now drowns in debt,

if we’d grab one end of a rope at the grassroots,

we might buoy up our backsides with a living wage.

corrupt leaders don’t believe that the wages

of sin is death. They look at our powerful words as bearing no street

value. Lavish lawn parties are their idea of grassroots.

they believe in holding our

infrastructure, climate future & immigrant children as bargaining tools, debts

that everyone in America will pay for, except the billionaires.

the rich in compassion and action are our spiritual billionaires,

but big business and big pharma won’t pay their wages,

to look out for one another should be our primary debt,

instead of chasing the empty dream of easy street,

it’s not my America, or your America, or their America, but our

America, that wouldn’t have happened from the get-go without the grassroots.

might even billionaires soon awaken to grassroots ideals? To realize equal

wages are for all our benefit? Banded together, might we finally arise from

sewer depths of debt to solid street level? Sound pretty good?

                                                           ~ Cynthia Gallaher

◦

Sestina poem for Bernie Sanders