You wish to submit a concern?

The day that Goldman Sachs announces a $3.19 billion profit (with $5bn set aside for bonuses this quarter) seems a good time to dust down this poem from Corpoetics.


Goldman Sachs

You wish to submit a concern?
A concern regarding the firm?
Who are you? Are you new?
You will learn who is who.
You will learn to submit to the firm.


(Poem based on this text, which used to be on the Goldman Sachs 'about us' page – since updated.)

Copies of Corpoetics are available for £5 plus p&p with all proceeds going to the National Literacy Trust.

Q&A with A&A

Casualoptimist  
The Casual Optimist, aka Dan Wagstaff of Raincoast Books in Toronto, has just published a Q&A about our Corpoetics project. You can read the whole thing here and have a dig around the rest of the blog while you’re at it. It's a good mix of literary and creative musings and observations, as well as the odd interview with obscure copywriters.

Two pencils and a poem

Pencils

D&AD

The year appears.
Ideas take place.

Exceptional ideas
are showcased.

Exceptional ideas –
as well as yours.

All the best,
The D&AD Awards.

http://awards.dandad.org/2009/html/about.html


Corpoetics in D&AD
Order a copy
Pictures of the night

D&AD&A&A

Kpmg  
An appropriately self-satisfied poem to mark the fact that we have been nominated in this year’s D&AD for our Corpoetics project. The nomination comes in the Writing For Design category, alongside the Christopher Doyle identity guidelines. It appears to have been a good year for writing for design, with plenty of entries and in-books, including the likes of Mike Reed and The Chase.

Thanks to Jim Davies, one of the judges, for writing about the project over here (along with some interesting observations on the category as a whole).

Woolworths RIP

Woolworths

Today is the big closing down sale for Woolworths – a sad end for a once-great brand. I included a poem about them in Corpoetics, which now has a slightly poignant air. I always thought it should be set to music – not sure which tune though. For some reason, I’m thinking The Proclaimers. Or maybe Keane.


Woolworths plc
In towns and cities throughout the UK
a retailer offers its customers a
range of products for family and home,
and value for money (for which it is known).

Woolworths, Woolworths plc.
Built on value for money.
Woolworths, Woolworths plc.
Shop for all the family.

http://www.woolworthsgroupplc.com/aboutus/group_overview.cfm


(Image taken from Telegraph website. It's the first ever UK Woolworths store, opened in Church Street, Liverpool in 1909.)

Found in translation

Corpoetics has been picked up on a few blogs around the world, but the one we like best is this Dutch one called Fackeldey Finds, written by Jacqueline Fackeldey. We had to run it through the Babel Fish translation tool to work out what it meant. The result forms a strange kind of poetry in its own right. Here’s the introduction to her article (with some added line breaks):


You come them everywhere against,
the splendid sentences and slogans
with which commit themselves recommend.

You a book are able write and that is also exact
what the stylist has done Nick Asbury.

There, as it happens, recently a collection
of poems of its hand with in this poems
appeared based on those sentences.

Hence that Asbury this dichtvorm
and its collection of poems
very appropriate ‘Corpoetics’ have called.


Not sure what a dichtvorm is, but let’s face it, it doesn’t sound good.

Jacqueline goes on to include a few poems of her own, which look great, although Babel Fish continues to have its weird way with them. Here’s one example:


An open door is called at us `entrance solution'.
And we clean tillen at the level of precise cleaning'
but sometimes us the doubt comes over
in the form of the grindstone for the spirit
because simplicity is' nevertheless `design your own life'?


Sounds like a Steve McClaren press conference.

Anyway, thanks very much for the post Jacqueline. And thanks to Babel Fish for clearing everything up.

Corpoetics in Creative Review

Corpo

Our Corpoetics project gets some coverage in this month's Creative Review

Download a pdf (604 kb)