Marketing, Advertising, and… Poetry

(Sunday Poetry Corner) These days, I’ve been sharing my knowledge and experiences in the field of advertising. But today is Sunday, a sacred day we dedicate to the spirit. And to nourish it, what better than poetry? This raises a question: can poetry and advertising coexist?

Believe it or not, I once pondered this myself. I am a poet—I always have been, for a poet is born, not made—and yet I worked in advertising. To top it off, advertising is a cog in the marketing machine, tied to prior research, budgeting, cost control, and more.
 
So, as you can see, poetry still finds a way to peek through, every now and then, amid all those numbers…
 
ADVERTISING AND NUMBERS 
 
I dream up selling ideas,
write advertisements,
jot down their instructions,
envision images, structures,
and sketch them in a draft.
A flood of ideas,
sprung from my mind,
swamps my desk, fills my files,
overflows drawers,
spills into the hallway.
Ideas, projects, phrases, concepts,
for the world must be stirred,
motion must be sparked.
But also… I must crunch numbers. 
 
Seated, I compute figures,
calculate percentages;
it’s a thread stitched into my craft.
The highs and lows of life
seep in, day by day,
onto my work desk. 
 
And if I can’t escape them,
if I must bear their weight,
like a toll I pay
for the joy of creating
and writing what I imagine,
at least let me shrink them
to their barest form. 
 
Numbers, cursed numbers,
let me soar more freely,
let my pencil draw its strokes
as it pleases,
crafting, if it wills,
verses and poems,
long or short.
 

A chance encounter will take him far away, on a thrilling adventure full of action and emotion that will change his life... but also the lives of everyone around him…
“Fleeing into silence”: https://a.co/d/7SUfVb3