…a very special Lady graces my blog today… Authoress and Poetess Supreme… Rohini Sunderam…

…at the risk of repeating previous blog openings, I’m the most fortunate of bloggers inasmuch as my terrific Guests come from all corners, and in all guises… since this ol’ Jurassic arrived in Bahrain, I was invited to join the excellent Bahrain Writers Circle…

…started a few years ago by Robin Barratt, who still offers great support from his home base these days back in the UK, the group has gone from strength to strength on the broad and willing administrative shoulders of David Hollywood and Rohini Sunderam… David is an accomplished Poet in his own right, and may appear at some time on this ‘ere blog…. meantime, the effervescent Rohini offers splendid illumination to my page… let me stand aside and allow her to speak for herself and her unique CORPOETRY collection…

From Corporate Laughter to Corpoetry

Rohini Sunderam

This collection of poems came into being by a chance remark made by a colleague when I was working as a copywriter in the advertising department of the regional newspaper The Chronicle-Herald in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The chairman of our company happened to visit our department – which was located in the industrial park in the neighbouring twin-town of Dartmouth – and he was being given a tour by our department head.

We all knew that the ‘Big Chief’ was calling on the Advertising Director but he rarely walked around the floor. So we were all quite relaxed. I happened to be standing and chatting with one of the senior designers – was it work related, I can’t recall. It probably was, initially, but we’d wandered off into other more interesting subjects than work when clear across the floor we heard our boss’ forced laughter. The kind of ‘ha ha hah’ that you know means he’s laughing at said big boss’ rather tame joke. That prompted my colleague to comment, “Ah! Corporate laughter.”

Simultaneously I noticed quite clearly that everyone on the floor started to look busier than usual. People slouching in front of their computers straightened their backs. Casual conversations were cut off with an official sounding, “So when do you need it?” The other colleague understood and gave some equally officious response. Folk ambling along to the water cooler or kitchen walked right by and headed back to their cubicles or desks.

In the meantime that phrase ‘Corporate Laughter’ started bouncing around in my head like a squash ball that’s been whacked hard against the wall and missed by the opponent. I couldn’t concentrate on the headline and copy until I’d written ‘Corporate Laughter’ out of my system with a short poem that repeats what I’ve just said with the added suspicion that the Chairman was quite astute and saw through our ‘acting busy’ charade. In fact it ends with:

While the chairman of the company

Stifles signs of sharp intuition

And lets those other little signs pass by

At least, just for today.

That should have been that. Most times for me, when the subject of a poem has been exorcised with a poem, it’s gone and doesn’t bother me again and I can get on with more meaningful real work. This one didn’t.

I began to see and hear things and become aware of situations that prompted another and yet another poem. Before I knew it I had twenty-five poems dealing with life in a corporate situation. Simultaneously I began to doodle using the built-in clip art that came with Windows back in the early 1990s.

I didn’t do anything with the poems or the illustration but I’d look at them once in a while, (they’d gone from being saved on a floppy disc to my hard drive to a flash drive) and have a chuckle. Then I came back to Bahrain and shared the poems with Linda, my friend and erstwhile colleague at the advertising agency where I worked.

She thought they were “awesome”. And she offered to illustrate them for me, while urging me to find a publisher. Initially I approached a Canadian publisher, because some of the poems were very Canadian. They were very encouraging and asked to see a manuscript. They liked what they saw but said I needed to bump up the number of poems to fifty at least.

In Bahrain I saw even more opportunities to write more poems on the subject.

I re-did the very Canadian poems and made them more universally relatable. Unfortunately the Canadian publisher decided to pass – they were small and traditional and published only limited titles. Fortunately in my search I came across Ex-L-Ence Publishing in the UK and they decided to go for it.

Corpoetry is available here:

http://www.ex-l-ence.com/Corpoetry.php

Reviews may be read here:

http://www.robertcubitt.com/1/post/2015/04/water-cooler-wit-five-star-poetry.html

And here:

https://fictionpals.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/david-hollywood-of-bahrain-confidential-reviews-corpoetry/

…Rohini has been typically modest in her piece above, but let me share with yeez, Lads and Lassies of Blog Land, a little more about this enchanting Lady…

Rohini has been an advertising copywriter for more than 30 years. She has written ad copy – for films, radio, and print- in India, Bahrain and Canada. Two books were commissioned assignments as part of her professional work. Her articles and stories have been published in The Statesman, Calcutta, India; The Globe and Mail, Canada and The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Nova Scotia, Canada.

She also edits and manages a blog ‘Home The Clock Struck One’ (http://dlip.wordpress.com) for her brother who had a stroke a few years ago and a blog of personal writing and interests: http://www.fictionpals.wordpress.com. And she is an active member of the Bahrain Writers’ Circle. (SG editing here : for ‘active member of,’ read, ‘she is one of the people who constitute the personal glue that keeps the Bahrain Writers Circle as enjoyable and friendly a writers’ gathering as it is… )

Rohini’s writing credits include the following:

• Corpoetry, a collection of light hearted poems about corporate life published December 2014 by Ex-L-Ence Publishing, UK.
• A contributor to the anthologies:
  • My Beautiful Bahrain (Published in 2012 by Miracle Publishing, Bahrain)
  • More of My Beautiful Bahrain (2014 Robin Barratt Publishing).
  • Poetic Bahrain (Published 2015 by Robin Barratt Publishing)
• A poem was selected for publication in the international competition Poetry Rivals (Published by Remus House, UK) 2012.
• Her short story Your rebirth, My death was short listed in The Atlantis Short Story Contest 2013.
• Her 50-word short story was the winner in a competition held by Oapschat, UK
• She has participated in The Colours of Life an annual poetry festival held in 2012, 2013 and 2015

Connect with the Lady on

twitter       : @Corpoetry

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/RohiniSunderamAuthor?ref=profile

…thanks for sharing, m’Lady, Rohini… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

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