The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America

by David Whyte

Book Overview

"With this insightful book, David Whyte offers people in corporate life an opportunity to reach into the forgotten and ignored creative life (their own and the corporation's) and literally water their souls with it. The result is a very well written book that can truly heal."--Clarissa Pinkola Est s, PH.D., author of Women Who Run With the Wolves and The Gift of Story

Find professional and personal fulfilment...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385484186
• ISBN13: 9780385484183
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: Crown Currency
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

"What profit a man...."

Frankly, I found this to be an especially demanding book even when reading it for a second time. Whyte requires of his reader a rigorous as well as truthful self-exploration, and in ways and to an extent few other authors do. As is so often true in other dimensions of human experience, the benefits derived from reading his book are almost wholly dependent upon how much is personally invested in it. As Whyte explains, he wrote this book "hoping it would be read in two ways. First, as a good story about the difficulties and dramas of preserving the soul at work -- in short, a page-turner; second, as a book that could be studied, contemplated, and discussed with others." More than 50 years ago, Mortimer Adler affirmed the value of reading the "great books" because they stimulate and enrich what he called "a conversation across the centuries." I think this is what Whyte has in mind when providing, in the book's final section (a "User's Guide"), a number of thoughts for reflection and discussion as well as for self-questioning. For example: "What is my heart's desire in life? What are some of the particularities of the way I like to live? What are the essential qualities that give me a sense of belonging? How can work be a good servant to my essential nature instead of a taskmaster?" As I now reflect on this book after a second reading, I think its greatest value lies not only in the truth of what Whyte expresses so eloquently but also in what his assertions and questions require his readers to consider as they seek spiritual fulfillment in their own lives. Those who my high regard for this book are urged to read Whyte's other books, especially Crossing the Unknown: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity and Fire in the Earth; also, to check out David Maister's Practice What You Preach and Tim Sanders' Love Is the Killer App as well as Eliyahu M. Goldratt's The Goal, Critical Acclaim, and It's Not Luck.

Poetry and Transformation

David Whyte, in The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, writes that "If there is one common experience of complexity in the workplace, it would be the experience of feeling lost... in the difficulty of a situation or in our very arrogance or nervousness over a problem." Whyte was encouraged as a resource to business by Peter Block--a trainer, organization consultant, and author of The Empowered Manager--because the powerful images available in poetry can be liberating in the workplace. As a lover of poetry, I was delighted when a client gave me tickets for one of Whyte's workshops a few years ago. One of the poems that Whyte recited for us (and cites in his book) is a teaching tale in the Native American tradition by David Wagoner. It was a thrilling personal experience to hear in Whyte's resounding and dramatic voice Wagoner's response to the question, "What do I do when I am lost in the forest?" (shown in part below): Stand still, the trees ahead / and bushes beside you / are not lost... / Stand still, the forest / knows where you are. / You must let it find you.Observing Whyte's impact on others in the group (many of them business people) also gave me the courage to use poetry in my development work with business executives, focusing on the symbolic aspects of people's (and organizations') growth potential. David Whyte has done us all a service in demonstrating how powerful poetry can be in "arousing our hearts," in enabling significant personal transformation. I highly recommend his tapes and books of poetry, as well as The Heart Aroused.

My one indispensible business book

This is the book for you, if you feel like you are losing your soul in the midst of the dark Corporate wood. If you've ever been asked to fire someone who was doing a good job, or if your knee-jerk response to your boss is 'yes' and that still bothers you, read 'The Heart Aroused'. If you agree with, "Work almost always becomes a platform for self-righteous moralizing. So much is at stake...", read 'The Heart Aroused'. If you have inspirational posters from Hallmark or the Franklin Planner folks on your office walls, it's probably too late to read this book. I'm sorry, but you've already lost your soul.

A Wonderful and Inspiring Book

The author had a very interesting and insightful interview on Public Radio which prompted me to purchase and read this book. I run a small software company; the exertion definitely affects the perspective of meaning in my life. Whyte's book has been very helpful to me in sorting out how important an influence work has on one's soul.It seems to me that our understanding of meaning (insert satisfaction, growth, personal development, reward, or any other value...) is too often clouded by a confusion of the importance our careers have in manifesting what we are and who we want to be.Whyte does us a service by sharing with us the value of a broad, soul-searching quest -- through our work -- using poetry. Through repetition of references to Beowolf and other poems, he uses marvelous, concise prose to describe what the soul really needs: meaning through spriritual struggle by nurturing deep feelings of self-doubt. We must lose our way in order to find ourselves; there is no other way to awaken.Unfortunately, I cannot summarize how one awakes to find himself or herself through the focused life-long energy expended in careers. Whyte's book illustrates a number of paradoxes that should be examined. If your soul is in need of sustenance, this wonderful book will nourish. I highly recommend it. It is one of the very few non-technical books I keep in my office.

This is a wonderful book.

The Heart Aroused is a book about the state of the soul in the corporate workplace, written by an English poet. If you've ever wondered "Am I the only one who is miserable here?" or "Do others feel they can't speak the truth?" or "Are others being smothered here as well?", you will love this book. Yes - others feel these things. This book says what no one will articulate: it IS hard to speak the truth (or gain one's own voice) in the corporate workplace, it IS hard to maintain one's integrity and BE oneself, it IS hard to be healthy and happy in this environment. But Whyte does not advocate heading for the hills - he feels the corporate workplace can be transformed (with effort) by more awareness on the part of both management and workers. He DOES see the good points of corporations (as efficiency). He, himself, goes into corporations giving workshops on this subject. He ends by mentioning that we spend most of our waking hours at work, so it is a matter of our health, on every level, how we are able to function, what kind of conditions surround us, and what the goals of the corporation are. As a work of beauty, as a book that reinforces what so many people feel, and as something that provokes thought, I highly recommend this book.