As summer interns our lives are filled with work, friends, and most likely a class or two. If we’re lucky we are given a chance to combine a couple of these things to make our time more interesting. One of our current wonderful intern team, Taylor, decided to answer some questions for a report in poetry form for a class presentation about her internship here at The Space. Her amazing presentation was met with rapt attention and thunderous applause (some students actually paid attention)! The instructor who had assigned the presentation was left flabbergasted too. We hope you enjoy Taylor’s poetry as much as the rest of the Space team have!
1. LIMERICK- My Workplace
I work at a theatre, The Space
Getting work done is never a race
Community project, non-profit
10 years strong, can’t stop it
I’d be proud to call it home base
We put up a number of plays
Two weeks is the average length of stay
The theatre’s a community
So we put up with impunity
And egos as large as the bay
It’s worth saying the staff it is small
Down to three when we leave in the fall
My boss has been there a decade
As a man, he is self-made
He should be put in the fame comma hall
The building it was a church
Within, the Lord’s name we besmirch
We don’t watch our language
Our sailor mouths we can’t vanquish
But we’ve yet to be smited, or worse.
How else can I describe this place?
The kid’s class I’ve wholly embraced.
There’s workshops for adults
That produces great results
Like new members to work at The Space.
2. SONNET- My Responsibilities
What I like best is planning events
Picking the flowers, the music, the pace
My boss gladly listens to my two cents
It makes me feel valued at The Space
But I also love working with the Cadets
The drama, the tears, and the laughter
I hone their acting skills, they fall I’m their net
I make sure there’s a happily ever after
On Mondays I feel like an adult in my profession
Understand London theatre through participation
Attend workshops, takes notes on the session
And put theory in motion by application
Often the work is secretarial
Paperwork, phone calls, the like
The finance reports are my burial
Another set of press releases and I’ll go on strike.
Integral to my experience is my show
With Shakespeare, my favorite playwright
A working actress, my dream is to know
The human experience inside and outright.
I feel lucky to have such responsibility
And hopeful I’ve gone to asset from liability.
3. HAIKU- What Challenges Have I Faced?
My work runs smoothly
Not bumps; rather tidal waves
We ride together
4. VILLANELLE- What Have I Learned About Cultural Differences/Myself?
Treasure the diversity in art,
Where differences are an advantage
You close your eyes and I open my heart
To the possibility of my philosophy torn apart
While you focus on minimal damage
Treasure the diversity in art.
The Space breathes life and a new start
to the Greene Card, brandishing cultural baggage
You close your eyes and I open my heart
and accept that the culture of business wants you marked
But you’re not a stereotype to be managed
Treasure the diversity in art.
Because cultural history isn’t data you chart
Or a particular point of vantage
You close your eyes and I open my heart
To our similarities, surely closer than far apart
Meager tolerance is no cure but a bandage,
You must treasure the diversity in art
Else close your eyes while I open my heart
5. FREE VERSE- Use Cultural Toolkit
Expression comes naturally to a person like me
Who fidgets and grimaces and beams
Whose every flitting thought
Inane, Selfish, Private, Thoughtful
Shows on her face.
It is dishonest, disrespectful, and unimpressive to me
To meet with people more reserved
It makes sense you’d hide behind a mask of Neutrality
But it’s braver, better, behooving to level the playing field
It’s hard to trust a person you cannot read
But instinct tells you to look closer
But the pushback is harder to receive
When your book’s bound so tight
And I shouldn’t have to tear the pages out
When I have so willingly broken my own binding
So that you may read my words
When I have chosen my language so carefully
Adapted to your slang, your vernacular
Called back your experiences so you could better understand
Mine
I am Direct, in large print that some might call childish
But what’s wrong with wanting yourself to be known?
What’s wrong with expressing your needs, your hopes,
When waiting just grates on you day after day
until only the edges your pages have yellowed from sitting on shelves
Unread
The indirect may be called selfless, but they don’t know
What kind of havoc is wreaked from not showing themselves completely
To hide their messages in riddles and codes
Or writing in a language long dead
Hoping that someone has that magic decoder ring
But they’ve stopped putting them in cereal boxes since it’s a choking hazard
And it fits you Indirect because your words are
caught
in your throat
The communication at work is how I like
We work so physically close that it’s hard to hide
Our irritations, what projects we want, what excites and moves and keeps us up at night
So the typecast of the typical Indirect Neutral Brit thankfully doesn’t hold true
Which is excellent news for a person such as myself
Full to bursting with excitement over a half eaten mars bar found at lunch
Or nearly in tears over a fictional character’s plight
I am direct and expressive in a profession that allows me to do so
But my gratitude is yet limited by my expectation of it as a human right
It’s dehumanizing to act like we aren’t aching and deceitful to be aloof, apathetic, anything but awed by the long road ahead and the task at hand
It’s our lives, our stories, we’re meant to care about the words we write.
Poetry by Taylor Walters-Chapman
Introduction by Kit Baumer
Photo: The Space’s intern team take over the box office!