Poems to help make you a more Pow!-R-Ful Speaker.

People spend a great deal of time creating talks and presentations. However, it’s the way you say what you say that paints the pictures. Helps your listeners to understand your vision. Remember, your listeners have to visualize the points you are making. It is then they understand clearly what they need to do to profit from listening to you.

I use poetry to help my clients learn how to create those pictures. I call it "Coloring The Words". You take them from a "black and white" to a "Technicolor" image in their minds.

Here are some of the many poems I’ve use successfully. Read them aloud. Make sure you ‘see’ the pictures the words conjure up.

#1 "The Disused Airfield" by Christopher Wiseman.

I’ve chosen this first as it is probably my favorite for helping one to find the vocal variety each person possesses. As you read it try to see the airfield in your minds eye. Remember to be successful as a speaker you must.

• Feel it in your heart,
• Think it in your head,
• See it in your mind’s eye,
• Then say it!

Also – mark off the "trains of thought" or "spoken phrases" I talk about in Key #4 of my "Speak With Power!" book.(a spoken phase/ is one word/ to half a dozen words/ spoken on one impulse of breath/ to denote/ a single thought. When practicing mark each phrase with a slash [/])).

Disused Airfield – by Christopher Wiseman

It would be easy to make sense of this
With a movie camera and a tape recorder.
The camera would pan slowly; lingering
Over the fields, the burst concrete

Of the disposal bays, purple with willow-herb,
The still solid foundations of Nissen huts,
To the shell of the high control tower,
Windowless, gray, and, the ruins around it.

At that point the recorder would start
With a faint hint of excited male voices,
Until the set was new again, in 1942.

Aircrew chatting over pints of dark beer,
Mechanics in fatiques working on the Merlins,
Figures in the tower talking into radios,
Bedford trucks moving around the perimeter.

All would be movement and purpose.
Cut – to local village pub. Cut – to bombs
On low trolleys pulled by tractors.
Cut – to old men and young women

Looking suddenly upward to the streets
As the twilight draws the first bombers
Climbing, fighting for their element.
Great days, the camera and recorder would say!

Today I stand here alone,
My eyes panning across the sluggish cows
Deep in meadowsweet and nettles.
No dissolve. The voices do not come.

And yet, suddenly, how clear my father’s
Face – his cap – his blue uniform.
I stay for hours, my only tribute,
Grounded in the airborne song of birds.

#2 "If" by Rudyard Kipling.

You will see this is a fine poem for challenging your ability to apply the fourth Key – "Your Four P’s For Peak Performance" - Pitch, Pace, Pause & Project.

You will find eleven lines that begin with "If you ….." Each introduces a new thought. This means you need a different pitch and a different pace each time you say those two little words.

Just as in a talk or presentation, you must increase the intensity, and build to the action wanted at the end of your speech.

IF – by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, or talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not makes dreams your aster;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same’
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build them up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on’,

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but not too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

#3 HENRY V Chorus Act 4. Scene 1

If you feel you can’t ‘read Shakespeare’, this passage will change your mind. So many clients have found this so. As they pictured the scene, the words just came to life.

To set the scene, the English army is facing a final battle with the French. It takes place several centuries ago when swords and spears were the arms of the day.

The English are badly outnumbered and are already feeling they will be defeated. After the English King Henry talks to the men they are renewed in spirit and go on to win. Although the words are Shakespeare’s, the situation was real. Outnumbered and weary, they found new spirit and once again King Henry, renowned for his prowess as a warrior king, won the day.

Some of the words are "old or middle" English. However I don’t think you’ll find them difficult. For example "paley" means "pale". I think that is the only one not in today’s vocabulary.

If you want to hear that speech, you can probably get the play from your local library or through the internet from BBC films. Enjoy.

HENRY V Chorus Act 4 Scene 1

Now entertain conjecture of a time/
When creeping murmur /and the pouring dark/
Fills the wide vessel/ of the universe./
From camp to camp /through the foul womb of night/
The hum of either army /stilly sounds,/
That the fix’d sentinel /almost receives
The secret whispers /of each other’s watch:/
Fire answers fire,/ and through their paley flames/
Each battle /sees the other’s umber’d face;/
Steed threatens steed,/ in high and boastful neighs/
Piercing the night’s dull ear;/ And from the tents/
The armourers,/ accomplishing the knights,/
With busy hammers /closing rivets up,/
Give dreadful note of preparation:/
The country cocks do crow,/ the clocks do toll, /
And the third hour/ of drowsy morning comes, /
Proud of their number/ and secure in soul,/
The confident and over-lusty French/
Do the low-rated English /play at dice; /
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night/
Who, /like a foul and ugly witch, /doth limp
So tediously away. /The poor condemned English,/
Like sacrifices/ by their watchful fires/
Sit patiently/ and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger,/ and their gesture sad/
Investing land-lean cheeks and war-worn coats/
Presenteth them /unto the gazing moon/
So many horrid ghosts. /


O now, /who will behold
The royal captain/ of this ruin’d band/
Walking from watch to watch,/ from tent to tent,/
Let him cry,/"Praise and glory on his head!"/
For forth he goes/ and visits /all his host,/
Bids them good morrow /with a modest smile,/
And calls them brothers,/ friends, /and countrymen./
Upon his royal face/ there is not note/
How dread the army /hath enrounded him;/
Nor does he dedicate/ one jot of color/
Unto the weary/ and all-watched night,/
But freshly looks /and over-bears attaint/
With cheerful semblance/ and sweet majesty;/
That every wretch,/ pining and pale before
Beholding him, /plucks comfort from his looks:/
A largess universal,/ like the sun/
His liberal eye /doth give to every one,/
Thawing cold fear, /that mean and gentle all
Behold,/ as unworthiness define,/
A little touch of Harry /in the night/.

Now it’s your turn. Look for poetry and prose you can use to help. It will help you develop the confidence that comes from knowing your voice will be there for you whenever you speak.

"Work with your voice and it will work for you" - when you are giving a presentation. It will also carry your message when you are talking to your child, or a co-worker in your office. As the old jazz song says, "It ain’t what you say it’s the way you say it that gets results!"

...And if you have any poems you think will help others email them to me and I’ll share them here!