April is National Poetry Month! But this is a blog about small business, you might be thinking. How does poetry apply to small businesses?

Well, some of you might have a creative business where you produce greeting cards. Often, cards will have some type of verse, or maybe even a poem. It can be very compelling to pair an image with a poem. 

I have been adding poetry into the marketing and promotion of one of my new service offerings, Sanctuary: A Respite From 2024. I was able to convey everything I wanted people to know about this membership community with an image and a haiku. 

Because I used words that not everyone would know, I also defined them below the poem. 

The image above has the logo, a drawing of mine, and my haiku. It worked well to capture people’s attention and did encourage people to visit the website page and sign up. 

As I have continued to market this membership community, I have used this format with other visuals and poems. It gives me great joy to share these images on social media. 

In fact, I kicked off a recent session of Sanctuary with this haiku I wrote because we were going to be talking about joy:

Drowning in a sea
Of how we think it should be
Is there joy here now? 

© Catherine Altman Morgan

Kelsey Bigelow in a post on LinkedIn, “What can poetry add to the business world?” wrote: 

Poetry is a creative medium for storytelling, emotional intelligence (EQ), and getting a point across. All of which are appropriate — and could be more effective than current methods — for new hire onboarding, all-company meetings or conferences, retirement parties, social hours, whatever situation or event you can think of. 

For example, a poem could approach company values or a mission statement in a way that relates to a specific, tangible experience. A line from a poem can stick in an employee’s mind more than words on a flyer or painted on the wall.

I hadn’t ever considered using poetry in a corporate setting. Small business seemed like a bit of a stretch to me, but I kind of love this!

Anything that would make meetings less boring might be worth exploring.

I wonder if a snarky limerick contest might liven up a dull time at work. 

I wonder if the right poem on the wall could inspire employees.

I wonder if the right poem could be printed on mugs and T-shirts, generating an additional revenue source. 

I am going to keep thinking about this and sharing my poems, when appropriate. 

Maybe you want to join me and share some of yours?