In this episode, we sit down with Lauren Ducrey, a French-American poet, speaker, and mindfulness facilitator, to explore her journey of leaving behind a full-time career in tech to devote her life to poetry and art. Lauren shares insights on belonging across cultures, the power of poetic leadership, and how listening is central to both art and life. We also enjoy an exclusive reading of her poem "When They Say Be Like Water" and discuss the simple invitations that come from trusting intuition. *Original music by Leslie Allison *Sound editing by Erin Ozmat *Logo and cover art by Kira Weiss, photography by Kendall Tichner *Produced by Patty Carnevale and Erin Ozmat *All rights reserved in podcast content and the Giving In™ trademark
In this episode, we sit down with Lauren Ducrey, a French-American poet, speaker, and mindfulness facilitator, to explore her journey of leaving behind a full-time career in tech to devote her life to poetry and art. Lauren shares insights on belonging across cultures, the power of poetic leadership, and how listening is central to both art and life. We also enjoy an exclusive reading of her poem "When They Say Be Like Water" and discuss the simple invitations that come from trusting intuition.
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[00:00:00] Lauren: I like to think that poetry is a great tool to move from maladaptive perfectionism to adaptive perfectionism, because, and I think this is true of art in general, to make a piece of art, you always have an idea, and you can imagine it coming to fruition, but at the same time, If you're doing it in a quote unquote, adaptive way, you have to realize that the process demands surrender.
[00:00:31] Patty: Welcome back to giving in I'm Patty Carnevale and joining me as my co host and friend, Erin Ozmat.
[00:00:36] Erin: In each episode, Patty and I have intimate conversations with guests who have experienced profound moments of surrender.
[00:00:43] Patty: Today we're delighted to welcome Lauren Ducrey to the podcast. Lauren is a French American poet, author, speaker, AI designer, mindfulness facilitator, and a string cheese enthusiast.
When she's not busy creating more emotionally supportive AI, she's on a mission to make poetry accessible to everyone. Through her talks, performances, and online and in person workshops, which I've had the pleasure of attending, and they are incredible, she's breaking poetry out of the traditional confines and showing how it can be a powerful tool for our well being.
Her first book of poetry, Tongues Tied, is available on her website, and it's truly a delight. Be sure to check out her show notes for the link. If you're into spoken word, you can also check out her French album, wherever you stream your music, called Cordes Sensibles. Lauren, did I say that right? Please, I have like
[00:01:30] Lauren: a Spanish, a Spanish, like, which I loved.
French being French, you don't pronounce half the letters, so it's just, like the last S's are silent. Please! I love that. Please say it. It's called Cordes Sensibles. Ooh. Cordes Sensibles. Yes, there you go. That's beautiful. There you go.
[00:01:51] Patty: That's beautiful. Um, Lauren and I first crossed paths in the mountains of Costa Rica nearly three years ago, and it's such a joy to have her with us today to talk about her journey.
[00:02:01] Lauren: Welcome, Lauren. Thank you for having me. I already have a fat smile on my face, so this is going to be a great conversation. Yeah. It's
[00:02:08] Erin: so good to have you here. I'm curious, when you hear an intro like that, Lauren, like, what comes up for you? Are you there for it? Are you like, yes, this is me, or are you like, I don't know who they're talking about?
[00:02:18] Lauren: It's definitely a little bit of both, although I think, currently, uh, something that's been coming up for me has been embracing the multitudes. Mmm.
Mmm.
[00:02:30] Lauren: Because I've grown up in between cultures, in between languages, in between worlds, you know, I studied business and literature. So I've always been bridging different worlds.
I became a master chameleon in many ways, and I'm getting to a point where that's becoming a little bit exhausting. So I've just kind of. thrown my hands up in the air, thrown the confetti up in the air, and acknowledged that, you know what, I can be all these things. So it's, it's when I hear that first enumeration of, you know, poet, author, speaker, mindfulness facilitator, I kind of smile because I'm like, this sounds wild.
And at the same time, it's, it's, it's not untrue. It is what it is. So that's how I think about it.
[00:03:09] Erin: Wildly wonderful. And it doesn't have to make any sense.
[00:03:13] Lauren: Exactly. Just like poetry. Why should it have to make sense? Charlie Chaplin would say.
[00:03:18] Erin: Yeah. You talk a lot about saddling these two kind of cultures, these two identities.
Is there a place you feel like you belong or? Does that change? That's a great
[00:03:29] Lauren: question. Mm hmm. I think I'm also evolving my definition of belonging. For a long time, I wouldn't say that I live between cultures, I mean I probably said it for lack of choosing my words correctly, but when I really sat down, I think I said that I really live with two cultures, again, because I have the ability to pass.
As fully French or past as fully American, uh, accent being a massive part of that, which is so funny to me because it's not, you're not, you are considered fluent even if you have an accent in a language, but the perception of fluency is so, so, so attached to accent. Um, so for a long time, I think that I considered that I was, I truly belonged into cultures and that's very true to an extent.
And in this chapter of my life where I've decided to uproot myself, no longer live full time in New York City, but I also haven't decided where the new home is going to be, I'm, I am living a little bit more in the in between and I'm finding more belonging amongst people that also are in this transient in between state.
So the belonging has come way more from human relationships, which I think is, has always been somewhat the case. New York city became my home because of the family of friends that I made there. But I think particularly in this phase of not having a, an address. It's finding community of other people without a, uh, you know, year round address that makes me feel a sense of belonging.
[00:05:04] Patty: And where did this journey of, I would call it like a wandering roots journey, like you've unrooted from New York, but you are, your, your route is kind of searching around and exploring and having adventure. Um, when did that journey begin?
[00:05:22] Lauren: I would say two and a half years ago, which was when I took a three month sabbatical off of work, so I worked at Google for seven years, and at the five year mark, took three months off, went to eat sleigh love in Central America. You know, followed that deep yearning to live a like very nomadic, uh, kind of hippie, artistic lifestyle experience that felt incredibly alive.
And when I came back to New York after those three months, I had an aha moment of how do I live that life rather than this very urban life that has fed me tremendously for all of my twenties, but just didn't feel like it fit what I needed. Then, and so I started working with a coach, which was terrifying because by far the biggest financial investment I've ever made, and it felt really selfish at first because I was spending that money for myself, so I had to remind myself that.
You know, if I worked with somebody to help me get closer to what I believe to be my strongest potential, being a creator, being an artist, that would ripple out into the world. And so it wasn't so selfish, but it took a second to get there. And yeah. It took two years of working with that coach to finally get to the point where I felt ready to leave both Google and New York.
There was, there was somewhat of a correlation between both of those elements and how they created a very structured lifestyle that didn't, that didn't support this growing and growing and growing desire to really dedicate myself to art. and spirituality, although I now almost just say art because I think art is my spiritual expression.
So it almost seems redundant to say both of those things. Um, so that, that's where the wandering is coming and I'm trying, trying to listen to what places I feel the most inspired and grounded in, which is a balance I have found rare to achieve.
[00:07:31] Erin: Hmm. Inspired and grounded. Yeah. I want, I want to get so much into that, but I want to go back to the beginning.
Yeah. And when you like signed up for the coach, were, were you like sitting down with them and said, I got to leave Google, I got to leave New York, help me get there? Or are you just sitting and exploring? Like, how did you start those conversations?
[00:07:55] Lauren: I think what was clear to me was I do this, this deathbed test every once in a while.
Deathbed test! Oh my god. Bringing in the drama. Writing this down. You know, you invited a poet, I had to make it somewhat deathly. Uh, I imagine myself on my deathbed. And I'm looking back on my life and I think about, you know, what was really important. And it was quite obvious again, after these three months of being in a lot of embodied expression, doing a lot of music, a lot of writing, witnessing people do this and, you know, living a fine life.
Um, so having that aliveness, it was very clear to me on my deathbed working two, three, four more years at Google versus actually taking the leap at a point in my life where I had, you know, I had savings. I was in good health. My family was in good health. It was truly nothing that was tying me down. It felt quite obvious that this was the time to consider taking the leap.
And at first I was quite goal orientated where this coach works with people a minimum of six months at a time. So in my head it was like, okay, we're going to work for six months and at the end of those six months I'll have kind of figured everything out and I will quit. Perfect. Obviously did not pan out that way because change, like these types of changes, at least for me, you know, it took a, it took a long time, but when the change did happen, it happened exactly as I intuited it would, which was.
Maybe a year into our work with a coach, I remember hearing what truly just sounds like a voice in my head and not, not like the voice of God, but like thoughts the same way that at least for me, thoughts appear in my head. There's just always, you know, this voice that's kind of saying random things. And then this one thought or voice or whatever you want to call it came through, which was like, okay, you have until the end of the calendar year.
And then in January of 2024, it's time to go. And it was. Just like an obvious truth that presented itself to me, and. It didn't even feel like a decision in that sense, it was just a reckoning with, okay, that's the plan. Great. Let's do
[00:10:07] Erin: it. Wow. So that was the intuiting that you talked about, that, that voice was the intuition.
[00:10:15] Lauren: Yes. And that was a big part of this work with this coach. And I think in my life in general, trying to tap into true emotional intelligence and artistic intelligence is listening to that intuition. That's also where. The poetry comes from, which it took me a long time to realize there's this one of my favorite quotes by the French poet Jean Cocteau says, the poet doesn't invent, he listens.
And I remember taking that actually not quite literally, first taking it more metaphorically in the sense of, oh yeah, poetry is contemplative, right? You walk around the world, you observe A bird taking flight and then the ray of sunshine that's listening. And I think that is true to a degree, but I've started to realize that there's a literal interpretation of that where it's actually, you know, sitting down, being quiet and listening to those quote unquote thoughts inside your mind.
And some of them to me seem to not be quite thoughts. They're this form of intuition or expression that has a very, to me, still subtle, uh, difference with chatter voice. Um, so I've been practicing listening to that intuitive voice more clearly.
[00:11:32] Patty: It sounds like there's a fine tuning that you have done to be able to pay attention and hear it well.
Like, what is the quality of that voice? Maybe even in comparison to the chatter, to anxiety, or to other voices that might arise.
[00:11:47] Lauren: I'm definitely still fine tuning, but I will say there are times when I know it's easier to hear. So, it's more about context than the voice itself, and I know it's in the mornings, if I actually give myself the time to do a morning routine, to typically journal, read poetry, or play music, that's when it's much easier to hear.
And then, so far in terms of its tone, there's just something very simple about it. Isn't very demanding at all, actually. And one of the more vivid examples I have was how I wrote my first song and the intuitive voice just popped in my head. And it was as simple as go play with your guitar. And I was sitting on a retreat, and that quote-unquote thought popped into my head.
Super, super simple. And so I got up, started doodling on my guitar, playing different notes and chords. and allowed myself, this is another story, but allowed myself to put down some very simple lyrics. And then suddenly the song just started playing in my head. And for the next 24 hours, it was obsessively just unraveling and unrolling itself in my mind.
And at the end of those 24 hours, I sat like crying and laughing as I like finished the last note on my guitar of the last lyric and being like, what just happened? I just wrote a song for the first time. And it all started with that really, really simple. Very like clear prompt of go play with your guitar.
[00:13:21] Patty: I just got like little, little shivers on my arms from that. I love
[00:13:24] Lauren: that.
[00:13:25] Erin: Yeah. This is a topic I feel really called to explore because there's a thought that comes up around, is this me or not? Or is this Lauren or not? Is this what some might call a guide or a God or like a spiritual force? Is it just me expressing?
Lauren expressing their true self? Or is it all of those things?
[00:13:56] Lauren: I was gonna say, one, does it matter? But also, making it whatever's the most helpful for you in your process, because I think in different times, different framings will be helpful. So we'll never know, or at least my belief is that we'll never know.
So getting too attached to the nature of it, it could, I could see it almost like numbing that voice a little bit. You know, if it has to be a certain way versus the openness of it expressing potentially in different ways as well. Right now, again, I said, I'm still fine tuning, but maybe there are other tones or versions of this voice that I just haven't yet Heard or allowed myself to hear recognized because they sound different.
So yeah, I'd be curious actually to start listening Like are there different kind of different prompts and different voices from different? Parts or whatever it is, but the surrender I think is always part of it, which To me is why that idea of, you know, the external muse or the inspiration that comes from somewhere outside of ourself is helpful because it takes you out of your I, me, my story, which can be very debilitating when you start creating.
So in that sense, I could see the metaphor of, yeah, the external voice being helpful to immediately get you out of your ego mind.
[00:15:26] Patty: It sounds to me like the voice, the quality is offering an invitation. You know, at least that it's not very demanding or commanding and That there's a permission or, or an allow, even when you said that you wrote the lyrics down, you allowed yourself to write a few lyrics down. What role does permission have in your creative process?
[00:15:52] Lauren: Very big, I think, especially in the first years when I started exploring poetry. So for a little bit of background, I grew up in France. where poetry, you know, holds a lot of weight in French culture in this way that's very revered. So we learn poems by heart in primary school since we're, you know, small children, not in ways that necessarily focus on the deeper meaning of the piece.
It's truly more just like learning poems by heart and reciting them in front of the class, but you start to learn these names of, uh, of the French pantheon of poets and that goes on. All the way through high school. So there was this very daunting approach to poetry in my book. Mm-Hmm. made it very unapproachable.
And that changed when I moved to the United States. I moved to New York in my early twenties. Went through a breakup, which, you know, cracked open a lot of emotions that needed to express in some way or another, and I had been writing, uh, not, not creatively per se, but I'd been writing so much that I started journaling every morning, and something started happening during those journaling sessions, where at the end, when I kind of ran out of logical, linear things to say, I started playing with the sound of words and with the rhythm of sentences, And it felt very childlike, which is very different from all the academic and journalistic and essay writing that I've done.
And so, I realized, wow, this, this might actually be what they talk about when they talk about poetry. It's, it's wordplay at its very essence. But then having realized that, I had all these other questions of how do you structure a poem? When do you use capital letters at the beginning of lines? How do you break a line?
I had like all these more technical questions. And so I signed up to workshops with Brooklyn Poets, which I highly recommend. They were my, I feel like my school of poetry as a baby poet.
[00:17:49] Patty: Yes, I took some Brooklyn Poetry Poets, uh, workshops too. It was amazing.
[00:17:54] Lauren: So good. And coming back to permission, What I discovered there was a diversity of poets that again, I had not grown up imagining and poets for me were these like old white dudes who all got buried, like literally in the Pantheon in Paris, you know, that were revered for a very particular type of poetry.
And I was in these workshops with people who were, you know, teachers and poets and bankers and poets and marketers and HR people and, you know, had all these this diversity again, they contained multitudes, which I was talking about at the beginning of our conversation, and it It cracked open this, this, I think, very limiting identity or perception that I had of poets and it allowed me to be like, Oh, I can, I can do this too.
There's not this entrance exam where you have to fit a certain role and gender and type of personality, etc. So, very big, I think, in allowing the first steps out of the, out of the poetry cocoon.
[00:18:55] Patty: Mm, the poetry cocoon. You explaining your, or sharing your experience with Brooklyn Poets and the folks who run that organization and the other poets and students that were a part of it just like cracked open for me this memory.
I had gone on my first silent retreat, um, inspired by Erin at IMS in Massachusetts. Cause Erin, uh, is deep into that work. And I was like, what are you doing? I want to do that too. And I went to, uh, I don't think it's a full Vipassana, but it was like, it was like a taster. It was over MLK weekend,
[00:19:30] Erin: not the full
[00:19:31] Patty: seven days.
It was a full seven days. Yeah. And I was coming back on the ferry, good. I'm making my way back to New York. Um, And I had this moment of like, I need to get back into poetry. And I just Googled New York City poetry, found Brooklyn Poets, signed up for Jason Koo's class in Blank Verse, was obsessed with like, how much fun it was to write an iambic pentameter.
Like having those, that structure. And then I was like, Oh my God, I'm this freak with these other wonderful freaks who like to write in rhythm. Like how amazing is that? It was so much fun. And just sitting in the way that it was structured then before the pandemic was like the teachers hosted all the workshops in their homes.
Right. Is that what you experienced too? So we'd get like, candy and bottles of wine and like show up at Jason, Jason's apartment and like learn about all these amazing poets and then have assignments and read each other's work and give feedback. And, you know, everyone was, had day jobs for the most part, but it was so phenomenal to be in that space.
And I love that we found out that we shared that. Yes.
[00:20:44] Lauren: We shared that upon meeting in Costa Rica. My first class was also with, with Jason Koo. So it was like the first, our initiation was with the same person.
[00:20:53] Patty: Oh man, yeah, the best. That class was so phenomenal.
Hmm.
[00:21:00] Erin: What you're both are sharing is that that community around you was the permission, in some ways, to be an artist, to show up with your creative work and not see yourself as one thing.
[00:21:15] Lauren: I know for me that was the case, the uh, witnessing that you could have a day job that was Completely unrelated to poetry and show up to these workshops and everybody would read your work and listen to you and give you feedback and everybody was on the exact same, yeah, it was on the exact same plane and level.
And there was no, I think we all kind of knew what we did, but that truly wasn't relevant in the room. We're all just people that love poetry, trying to learn poetry. So it made it super accessible.
[00:21:47] Erin: It's such a different world for me in the glass studio that I, I find it hard to feel like I belong sometimes.
I've been talking to a glass artist that I, um, and even calling her a glass artist, I think she would say, Oh, I'm not a glass artist, because it's her, like, side hobby. You know, there's this, like, belief that if it's on the side for some of, maybe, these art forms, that it's not real. And I, I, I appreciate in, in learning more about you, Lauren, and just working with Patti, that poetry and words, in and of themselves feel more accessible?
There is no right path. Whereas some art forms, like the glasswork I do, I think people can judge and look at it and say, Oh, is that right? Is that art? Do you feel like that judgment is not as present in the way that you express your creative form with poetry?
[00:22:42] Lauren: I think that one of the reasons I turned to poetry was to avoid judgment, which can be ironic, because I think there can be a lot of judgment in poetry.
But my approach was realizing that if you're not trying to write a perfect sonnet or you're not trying to write a perfect form poem, it's actually really hard to determine what's good and bad. The objective criteria are very hard to establish, as opposed to a very long career in academia, where everything is very clearly defined by, you know, specific metrics and just expectations.
So it felt really liberating to be able to write a piece of poetry. And if somebody didn't like it, I could tell myself at least, well, that's just their taste. You know, it doesn't actually speak to the quality of my work. That's just their opinion and for, I would say, maladaptive perfectionist as myself, I can explain that terminology, I think that going towards a form that is so free like poetry was a way to also get over the constraints and the kind of obsession with perfection that I definitely grew up with.
[00:23:53] Erin: Maladaptive.
[00:23:54] Patty: Maladaptive. Perfect. Yeah, that's inuniscent. Maladaptive. Perfectionism.
[00:24:01] Lauren: Tell us more
[00:24:04] Patty: about that. Yeah.
[00:24:06] Lauren: So that is a term that I read in Katherine Morgan Schafler's book, The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control.
And
[00:24:14] Lauren: she's an amazing therapist. Um, I met her at a podcast recording. She also speaks beautifully.
And her whole point is that she doesn't believe in getting over perfectionism or recovering perfectionist, which was the term that I used to use because in her work, uh, she has identified or it's just established that. Perfectionism is something that you identify with and you don't get over a part of your identity.
It's not,
[00:24:42] Lauren: it's not a behavior. It's again, it's something that people identify with. So you don't, you don't recover from your identity. You learn to accept the different parts of your identity. And her definition of a perfectionist is simply someone who can see how things are right now and how they could be the maladaptive perfectionist lets that gap.
Kind of rule their life in a way that is. Not sustainable. The adoptive perfectionist learns to appreciate, Oh, I, I can see how things could be. Let's get there. But not in a way that completely, you know, overrules your like daily habits and your sleep and reading patterns and your relationships, et cetera, et cetera.
So I really appreciate that term, and I like to think that poetry is a great tool to move from maladaptive perfectionism to adaptive perfectionism because, and I think this is true of art in general, to make a piece of art, you always have an idea, and you can, you can, you can imagine it coming to fruition, but at the same time, you If you're doing it in a quote unquote adaptive way, you have to realize that the process demands surrender.
It was actually something that Jason Koo told me in that first workshop that I went to. There was an assignment and I had an idea of what I wanted to write about. I sit down, I start to write about, I think I wanted to write about like conservatism versus liberalism or something like that. And as I start writing about that, there's this other idea that starts to emerge in my writing.
So my thought was, Oh, I'll just include all of it in my poem. We get to the workshop. And people are reading and commenting on my piece. I give no information about it. And everybody in the room ends up saying, like, I feel like there are two poems in this poem.
Mm hmm.
[00:26:31] Lauren: And at the end I tell them, I'm like, yeah, I actually sat down with this idea, but then this other thread came through.
And that's when Jason gave me this piece of advice that I've kept near and dear. He says, sometimes you have to get out of the way of the poem. Hmm. And that's where I think the surrender piece comes in. So sure, like, have that, have that vision, have that perfectionist vision of like what could be and know that to get there, you won't be in control of every step of the process, which is.
It's super hard for perfectionists to admit to, but that's the beauty, I think, of any artistic practice is not knowing where it's going to go. Just like this conversation, you know, I'm, I delighted to not know where it's going to go.
[00:27:13] Erin: You had said something about I, me, mine,
[00:27:15] Lauren: that
[00:27:16] Erin: that's the, that's part of the getting in the way, the I, me, mine.
Can you share more about that?
[00:27:23] Lauren: Yes. I think it's what I've learned through writing poetry is. When you sit down to write you sit down with all these different parts of yourself, so it's never just you in the blank page it's very much collective effort and The inner critic, which, from teaching and hosting workshops, is the loudest of those voices that likes to pipe up when we sit down to write, wants to control the process.
It wants to start editing before you've even started writing. It wants to tell you exactly where to go and how to get there. Actually, not, it doesn't really tell you how to get there, actually. It tells you how everything you're trying to do is not the right way to get there. And I think it's just trying to protect you from writing something potentially bad, which You know, it was an understandable instinct of a part of you.
But some of the best pieces I've written, again, were very surprising. And there have been lines where I read them back today, I'm like, where did that come from? Back to our point of where does the intuition come from? Sometimes I don't, I read it and I know that I wrote it, but there's not this, like, intuition embodied sense of like, Oh, I remember what part of my body that came from.
It's just like, wow, I'm truly not sure where that came from. And so that is completely outside of the, of any process of being like, Oh, I wrote that thing. I crafted that thing. I think even the term author I find complicated because there's that sense of like, you're authorizing something. And I think that's It's true to the extent that you are allowing, like, inspiration to come through you.
I think it's not quite accurate in the sense that you don't have control that I think the term of authorize suggests, like, you're not, you're not that in control as you think.
[00:29:22] Erin: There's such a co creative quality to what you're sharing, and this may feel like a complete left turn, but I'm so fascinated by the work. That you shared a bit about doing with AI and emotion, and when you think about all these multitudes, all these meanings, this way of looking at the work as being collaborative, co creative, that there's no one way, and you look at AI and how people kind of talk about the possibilities and what it's doing for us, is there a connection?
there? Is there this multitude of meanings within AI? Is that getting lost in how people see it?
[00:30:06] Lauren: In large language models, which I think is the type of AI that we're talking about here, right? Because it points to so many different things. They're probabilistic models. And I think sometimes that's forgotten in the broader conversation.
So they're going to bias towards averages, you know, towards the type of language that's the most used. Unless You prompt it differently, but even then it's still going to go towards probability. So if you're trying to make it, right, you know, a very original and different poem, you're going to have to give it just a lot of very specific prompts to kind of yank it away from that, the gravitas of the average.
And that's why I don't think it's that interesting for generating the content where I think It can reinforce or, you know, uphold existing multitudes is by becoming a tool that is very accessible for people who wouldn't otherwise have written, for instance, um, you know, the number of people that I've spoken to that just that first step of putting pen to paper is too daunting because of the perfectionism, because of lack of time, because of so many different things.
And I think that if AI and AI like chat GPT or Gemini can get over that fear of the blank page and just get you trying something out, then that's great. And I can hear in myself and projecting in the external world, artists saying, but like the fear of the blank page is part of the process. You need to face that.
I'm
like,
[00:31:44] Lauren: sure, but if it's preventing people from trying that very first baby step full stop. then no, they'll have plenty of time to face the fear of the blank page. I face it all the time. So I think that making that barrier to entry really, really, really, really small by being a very user friendly, you know, interface by just being something that you can ask, like, I want to write a poem, help me out.
And it becomes a kind of coach. Then that's positive. And to me, that will allow more people to express that didn't used to before. I think that is what we're going to see happen at democratization of creative access that will, that will lead in time, I think, to interesting and very unique and diverse expressions.
[00:32:27] Erin: Super interesting. Is this the core of the work you do when you do consulting with companies on AI? Or how does that look? Because I think that's such a, it's a powerful message
[00:32:40] Lauren: to
[00:32:40] Erin: hear that it's part of our evolution rather than this separate path that's somehow degrading our creative qualities. But yeah, what, what is your intention in your work with
[00:32:55] Lauren: AI?
Experts and artists are the people who are the best placed to generate interesting art with AI. And why is that? Because they have the language, they have the vocabulary to prompt these models to do what they need them to do. So typically, if I'm trying to write a poem with ChatGPT, I have to think about what, in my opinion, makes a good poem.
And so I'll start using language like enjambments, like line breaks, like stanzas, like metaphor, like imagery. And the more granular I get, the better the output is going to be. So there's this, at this point, it's almost a stereotype, but this idea that AI isn't going to take your job. Somebody who knows how to use AI is going to take your job.
Or, I would say somebody who already, who has top creative skills, who uses those skills, augment their work with AI, that's going to be, that's going to be the really interesting work that's going to come out of it. So, that's the approach that I have when I, when I work with companies.
[00:33:58] Patty: So AI is ultimately, or can ultimately be a tool of artists, but not an artist itself, or is that too?
[00:34:05] Lauren: Yeah, I, from what I'm seeing for now, that's the case. I definitely don't claim to, you know, read the future of AI. I've read people that claim that we'll have, you know, general autonomous AI, which is kind of like a human level, you know, AI within two years, other people that are like, no gen AI right now is a bit of a bubble around the more creative and entertainment industries.
And once the use cases get firmed up, there's a lot of the noise that's just going to die down and we'll have integrated in our processes the same way that. Photoshop is something you don't even mention that you use anymore when you're working on, you know, photography or a campaign or whatnot. But I have yet to see a use case where there's truly no human input that has a result that has moved people.
[00:34:59] Erin: I am so curious for people who are listening, who are straddling these ideas around what technology can do and what. the human mind can do or the voice inside them can do. If you were to coach them on where to start, where, where would you, where would you guide them? Would you tell them to take the technology path or the blank slate path or try everything?
Or yeah, what, what would be your advice?
[00:35:30] Lauren: I would always start with being with the voice in your mind. Starting to me, that is ground zero. It's taking that, that time to find calm, peace, and quiet, and really get in tune with what motivates you. Because I think that, that will never go away. If you're looking, if you're turning towards generative AI to produce the artwork you're missing out.
On the art, because the art is the process, like we've been mentioning it's, you know, you can sit down with an idea, but it's the process of going through the craft that will eventually get you to that final point, which I think is true. Also, if you're talking to business people of entrepreneurs, I think.
Most brilliant ideas that we've seen materialize. They started with an idea that was different and then they sat down and they tried to build a company and then through trial and error, and, you know, getting into conversation with markets, it turned into something else that eventually was really interesting and useful.
I think that's the same process in a certain way with, um, with the arts. So it's like starting with what, what gives you energy, what makes you feel alive, what piques your curiosity. Starting from there alone offline. And then using the AI tool as a way to get more curious about your craft. And I mentioned this a little bit, that if you're going to prompt a model, you have to think about how it is you want to prompt it, right?
Like, what, what kind of poem do I write? What, what shape, again, what, what terminology do I need to use here? And that can actually teach you about your craft. There's this example that I love, an artist from the 70s called Harold Cohen. He was British, um, and he ended up doing a lot of work and studying in California, and he created Aaron, which was an autonomous painting algorithm.
I mean, this was in the seventies. And the reason that he went through this process of essentially training an algorithm to paint like he painted was because he figured that he could learn more about the nature of representation itself than by painting himself.
I still think there's a lot to be learned by doing the craft yourself, but this is also the approach of when you teach something, you learn a lot about it. It's when like, you really listen to like, what is the creative process? Where are the creative blocks? And how can we use the tool in what it does well to help unblock those blocks?
So it demands being rigorous and specific. And I would say the question that I would always come back to is like, am I being curious or am I being lazy?
[00:38:14] Patty: It's so, it's so interesting to be, as you're talking about, um, this AI tool that allows the person who is teaching the tool to then learn from the teaching. You started off taking classes at Brooklyn Poets. Um, AI programs. And now you two are teaching your leading workshops and things of which I was a part of, and it rocked my world.
I love, and I will definitely be attending another one, but it was so much fun. And the community was so warm and the work was beautiful. I'm curious about that path for you. What have you learned in teaching? Like what has changed in, in, in the doing and now moving into teaching and like, what is that reflecting back to you?
[00:39:02] Lauren: I love that question, because I haven't taken the time to think about it deeply, so this is the perfect opportunity for that. The teaching has definitely been an amazing prompt for me to get more curious with poetry, to read. even more poetry than I used to because I'm constantly digging for examples to use in the workshops or when I do one on one work to really tailor examples to what the person is trying to work towards.
So a prompt toward curiosity for sure. It's been a prompt also towards I'd say humility. I think both humility and confidence actually hand in hand because it's allowed me to realize, oh, these are all the things that I've learned. So I led a retreat back in May, a writing retreat, and at the end I wanted to send participants a kind of quote unquote cheat sheet about all the tips and tricks of writing poetry that we'd spoken about.
And I was listing them out and I was like, This is some pretty good content. Like these are pretty good insights to share with people. And I never really stopped to think about them in that way because I just use them when I write or when they come up in conversation naturally. So that's the confidence piece and the humility piece comes from.
the realization that I want and need to keep on writing. That it's, it could be easy to just stay in the theory, but the best examples that I can give, the best insights that I can give come from my own writing. Same actually with, with fun writing prompts. I'll write a piece and then retroactively look at the piece and think, what's a good prompt that could have generated this piece?
Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. And I'll give you an example. I wrote a poem that's called when they say be like water. What they really is dot, dot, dot. And I just wrote that piece in a kind of playful way. But afterwards I was like, Oh, that could be an interesting prompt where you have to choose a saying, like be like water, or it takes two to tango, or we'll cross that bridge when we get there and then write a poem about what it really means.
And so the writing feeds, the teaching feeds the writing. And I, I, I really want to remember that when being in the theoretical and the thought world feels really comfortable and familiar.
[00:41:39] Erin: Curious if this would be a good time to hear a poem from
[00:41:41] Lauren: you. Happily. I would love that. I actually would love to share the poem, "When They Say Be Like Water."
Oh perfect. Yes,
[00:41:50] Lauren: okay. Right on cue. Yeah. Right on cue. So this one is nowhere yet on the internets or even in the physical printed plane, but hopefully sometime soon.
So the title is When They Say Be Like Water. When They Say Be Like Water. What they really mean is Cool yourself by the seaside into a shiver of light, And dance, sunshine, onto the rocks for a disco at dawn. What they really mean is swell proud with noontime blue And spangle yourself with midnight stars.
What they mean is dress rocks in your wet silks And lick their rough edges smooth. What they mean is Ripple your salty skirts wide, throw them and pull them from the beach, you're a matador for swimmer's feet. What they mean is go against the tide but always move with the moon. Crown yourself ivory with every peak and froth back down like a freshly shaken drink.
Bubble yourself airbound and iridesce the sunset into an oil of violets. What they mean is. You can crash again, and again, and again, without ever burning. Be like water. The stronger the wave, the bigger the break.
[00:43:30] Patty: Wooooow. Thank you. Bathing in that right now. Just letting that sink into every cell and like, yeah.
Thank you so much for that, Lauren.
[00:43:46] Lauren: for inviting it in, the conversation.
[00:43:49] Patty: I remember during your workshop day that I participated in, you had said That writing is movement and that has really just like nestled inside of my heart and I felt that so much while you were reading your poem. I'm like, we are on a journey.
We are cruising like this is amazing. It's such an embodied experience, but I'm sure for I'm assuming for you as the writer and also for us as as the listener, the receiver.
[00:44:20] Lauren: Yeah, I. I always remind myself of something a Serbian friend told me, which was, so she grew up speaking Serbian and then moved to the States, and she asked her parents.
In English, she said, you know, what's the word for poetry in Serbian? And they answered, saying the Serbian word for song. And she was like, no, no, like, what's the word for, for poem? And they repeated, it's song, like, it's the same word in Serbian, song and poem are the same thing.
And I love
[00:44:48] Lauren: that, because I think there's always musicality, whether it's super obvious with, you know, very, um, rhythmic lines, with rhymes, or less so.
There's always an element of movement that's, that's there. And sometimes poems, like, are very static and structured, but that's, that's, that's, just the opposite of movements because they're probably conveying a sense of stasis. So yes, there's always a dance and musical quality to poems in my opinion.
[00:45:18] Patty: The prompt that you gave Lauren in the workshop that we did, which was Get Your Scribble On and you do it monthly.
Is that, is that right? Yes. Monthly, every
[00:45:26] Lauren: fourth Wednesday.
[00:45:28] Patty: Every fourth Wednesday. And each one has a different prompt.
[00:45:32] Lauren: Yes. Different theme, different prompts, different like example poem.
[00:45:36] Patty: Yeah, and for the one that I participated in, the theme was joy and One of the poems that we read as a prompt was Mary Oliver.
[00:45:48] Lauren: Joy is not made to be a breadcrumb.
[00:45:50] Patty: Yes, it was Don't Hesitate. Yes. Oh my gosh. Do we have to read this poem? Would you like to read the poem, Lauren?
[00:45:58] Lauren: Yeah, let's read it. Yeah. It's such a good poem. Okay, got it. Great. So don't hesitate. If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give into it.
There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind, and much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.
It could be anything. But very likely, you notice it in the instant when love begin. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. Mmm. So
[00:47:11] Patty: delicious.
[00:47:12] Lauren: So deceptively simple, always. Ah,
[00:47:15] Patty: man. I bring that up because what came out of that prompt, and what that led to for me, was a poem that was a conversation between joy and my mind, and like, my mind and my gut, my mind and my heart, and how joy, like, travels, and an invitation and instructions.
And I appreciated it so much. It was like a little, a little bit of wisdom coming from somewhere deep that those prompts have helped to excavate.
[00:47:51] Lauren: I think poetry is a form of Surgery in that way, of non, of non invasive surgery, it'll go in time, whatever is, you know, clotted up. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:48:24] Patty: I'm curious, like, there's, there's so much in your life right now that is Bringing aliveness and you followed this thread, you said, you know, in the beginning of aliveness, what's a bright spot that you can share with us of what's just like happening in your world right now?
[00:48:41] Lauren: There's this concept that I've been circling kind of dancing around, but that I feel very, very drawn to, and that has materialized more strongly, which is the concept of poetic leadership.
And it's been explicitly obvious to me that poetry is an amazing tool for emotional intelligence. And I talk about this. And my talks and my workshops, right, that the ability to, to listen to the small details to use your language and very specific and granular ways all contribute to empathetic communication and emotional intelligence at large.
But there was this idea that if decision makers and organizations. Read more poetry, engaged more with poetry, had a more poetic outlook on the world. The decisions might be more holistic, the same way that a poem has this uncanny ability to speak to what's not in the poem. So in that way, it's extremely inclusive.
It's almost like translates to stakeholder management, if we're using really business oriented terms, right? Decision making, right? Because poems make you really familiar with ambiguity. You have to decide what the poem is about. Nobody's going to tell you. So you have to make that decision and you have to realize that it's not right or wrong.
It is a decision amongst many, an interpretation amongst many that there might be differing ones, but that you've decided that to move forward and to be an action, you need to Make a decision, argue for it, and move forward with it. So there's all these different qualities that have been emerging. And I recently, uh, met an amazing CEO of a company who's a massive poetry reader.
He doesn't call himself a poet. I would argue that he is just by being imbibed with poetry. And we started working together because he invited me to coach him. And so I got the opportunity to develop this framework of Poetic leadership. And that has been percolating ever since for the past couple of weeks to into a slight obsession, which I've learned is usually a sign of something good when I start writing a song and I'm obsessed with it, I'm like, okay, we're onto something.
And this idea of poetic leadership has been really exciting. And there's a, it's uncovering this like very big pie in the sky dream of leadership development and how we think of organizations, not so much as Organizations. But like a friend said to me a few weeks ago is organisms. And I love that difference between structure and organic matter that still has structure.
Otherwise, you know, that's not everything is compost. Life organizes organic matter into a shape, but it's flexible enough that it can evolve and move, which is something that fascinates me with companies. It seems like They're trying to be organisms with structures that are just too rigid to actually achieve that.
And I think that can come from the top, from the way leadership approaches, um, their jobs.
[00:51:44] Erin: Oh, I love this idea of a poetic leadership framework that feels poetic. more spacious, you know, as someone who is a leader in their organization. I love this idea that you shared about an organism because I think that's what organisms do is that they're evolving and that they create the structures, whatever it is to support them, but ultimately it is just a support.
It's a foundation, it's not meant to be. And I think that maybe ties to your work in poetry, too. The stanzas, the format, is just a foundation. in which to grow upon. It isn't the thing itself.
[00:52:31] Lauren: Yeah. Mistaking structure for the, for the thing itself without realizing like, no, that is just what supports the existence of the thing.
You need some kind of structure for the poem, but I feel like we've over indexed as at least Western societies on the structure versus the, you know, the content, the, where it is that we're going, the ability to evolve the conversations, the human skills and abilities.
[00:52:55] Patty: Yeah. Even just thinking of ourselves as like creatures recently has really been on my heart.
I'm like, Oh yeah, we're creatures and so is everything that's alive on this planet. We're just all these little creations running around, like, you know, doing our thing. And we're not meant to be so locked in, you know, to, to certain processes. Things that were built to help us grow or to help us stay safe.
They too have to be able to act as, or to support creatures, which do not stay the same change is the only thing that's. that's promised. I love that this is a direction that you're heading in and that you have identified it as such a bright spot. And I hope that it's like you are a fractal of hopefully what is evolving larger scale.
[00:53:51] Erin: I love this idea. You know, I work at a company that is so deeply ingrained with food. This feels very resonant to the work we do because we're creating food. We're helping people make food, but A beautiful meal on the table or explore their interest in creation and you put that into a corporate environment and I love that the company I work at is so present to the tension between this thing that is so just.
about hearth and nurturing and warmth and when we create food for each other when we have a meal with our families or our friends and we sit down we're like creating and evolving something and I think there's something so Beautiful about working for some place that can sustain me in a capitalist economy and still talk about and work with people who are just really excited about food.
And I'm just, I'm bringing that up because even you talking about poetic leadership makes me see that bigger. Picture makes me see the poetry in the work.
[00:55:08] Lauren: Yeah, I was going to ask, I'm curious how you think this company and the organization has achieved that balance between existing within the demands of a capitalistic and, you know, high productivity paradigm and staying true to that mission of making food in a way that feels holistic.
Yeah.
[00:55:31] Erin: I don't think it's black and white or like perfect every day, but I think one of the core parts of it is really putting the people first. And, you know, when I came into the organization, there wasn't a lot of process around certain things, but where there was process was in the creation of the food and the product that people were really excited to give others.
And that was really cool of like, oh, that's where the care is. Like that's where the thing is. And I think that's always a good signal of like, where are people putting that energy?
[00:56:13] Lauren: Yeah, that's something that I remember constantly thinking about when I did work at Google and really appreciating when managers and leaders reminded us, clarified, crystallized the higher vision goal that we were walking towards as a team.
And lacking that, how fast I would lose steam because so much of the day to day is very operational if you lose that wide horizon point of view, things get really boring really fast, and that is actually something I'm going to do a workshop with. an executive team of a company that recently went through a merger.
And so the whole point is to come back to the fact that everybody's human and face the uncertainty of a post merger swirl and all the very legitimate concerns that you could have, you know, are, is heavy account going to get cut, which business units are going to get more resources or not, and I am really grateful that they, invited poetry into the room to recreate that sense of trust, recreate the sense that we're all humans and not let's strip ourselves from our job roles for a second, realize that we're all going through similar or different, but intense emotions, and then capture the shared mission in a poem, which I adore because it's only part of the process, I would say, and it's maybe 10, 20 percent of the process to do the analytical work of identifying.
what is, you know, what is the point of this company? And you can write a report and you can write bullet points, but that's not going to stay with you. You're talking about creatures. The analytical mind isn't going to get you to move in coordination with a pack of other humans. The emotional really will.
And so that's why I'm really excited for them to use language, which they use every day regardless, but use it with that emotional gravitas. Or hopefully when they read the poem afterwards, it'll snap them right back into that state of connection and Common belief and common vision that they were able to dive into during the workshop so they can be like, oh, right, right, right.
This is what we're working towards and I can get over this momentary frustration or setback or whatever because I have this, this poetic manifesto that's available to me so that I can not just know but feel the common purpose that we're sharing here.
[00:58:37] Erin: I love that. I went to a program in a business school and I wish there was a poetic leadership class where you got to write case studies that were poems instead of reports on how this happened.
[00:58:50] Lauren: I love that. I'm writing that down.
[00:58:53] Erin: Yeah, bring that into the academic world.
Lauren, for the folks listening, what would you like to share with them? Whether it's work that you've done, Things that they can listen to or just words of wisdom or all three all three sounds great Let's start there.
[00:59:29] Lauren: I think in terms of Work being done Yeah, consider that if you work within a team with an organization the invitation to explore both emotional intelligence and creativity through poetry is Way more accessible than you might think again.
I've seen People with very strong technical backgrounds at Google really lean into this work and come out feeling super energized and twice as excited to get back to the very technical job. So always available to chat about bringing the emotional spark of poetry into the workplace. And then things to listen to.
You mentioned the album of poems in French, which is still my, my little audio baby, Cordes Sensibles, feels like a, a short album of, yeah, poetic meditations, I think, in a sense, that just get you out of, out of your brain in really lovely ways. And then the words wisdom that feel most present right now is to you, person who are listening, I know that there is a poem out there that is waiting, crack you open so that you can remember how holy you are.
Mmm.
[01:00:51] Erin: I can't wait for everyone listening to get real cracked open soon and discover that holiness. And we'll have to include in our show notes, all the links to things you've mentioned, how to get in contact with you, the poems. That we shared today that you so beautifully spoke out loud for us to re listen to.
I'm, I'm just giddy thinking about the editing process and getting to hear those poems over and over again.
[01:01:21] Patty: I was just wondering if there's someone who is like, I 100 percent believe you. I want that poem. I want it to crack me open. Where, where are your favorite places to find poetry?
[01:01:32] Lauren: Great question. I love Pádraig Ó Tuama's podcast, Poetry Unbound.
He's part of the
[01:01:41] Lauren: On Being production studios with Krista Tippett. So there's a podcast version, and then he's turned, well, he selected 50 of the poems from the podcast to publish. So there's a book now that's called, I'm not going to remember the name right now, but inspired by Poetry Unbound. So that is the number one, I think, entry point towards discovering new pieces.
[01:02:03] Patty: Beautiful. Oh, I can't wait to listen.
[01:02:06] Lauren: Yeah. The episodes are brilliant. They're 10 minutes long. Oh, wow. He starts by reading the poem, unpacking the poem with his own interpretation, and then he reads it again. And I cry, I would say nine times out of 10, just within a 10 minute like shot of the poem.
Presence.
[01:02:24] Patty: Yes. Wow. What a beautiful format. Like so simple and so profound. It's
[01:02:32] Lauren: the audio version of poetry, you know, bite size, but he offers all these entryways through his own reading. So it's super accessible.
[01:02:42] Patty: Thank you both so much. This was so generous. Like, wow.
[01:02:47] Lauren: I feel like we touched upon all the things I anticipated and more.
So beautiful. Nailed the, uh, the intention. Yep. Thank you. Have a good one. Take care. Bye.
[01:03:03] Patty: Thank you for listening. If you loved it and want to help us do more of these episodes, please follow and rate giving in on your podcast platform of choice.
[01:03:10] Erin: And sign up for our substack. We have a newsletter that comes out the day of each new episode release. With highlights and more@givingin.substack.com,
[01:03:19] Patty: you can also email us at giving in@substack.com.
Giving in is produced and hosted by me, Patty Carnevale
[01:03:26] Erin: and by me, Erin Ozmat. Logo and cover Art is designed by Kira Weiss. Original music is by Leslie Allison, and sound editing is by me, Erin Ozmat
[01:03:36] Patty: until next time.