Poetry and Accounting may seem like an unlikely pedagogical pairing; however, this essay explains how poetry-based learning activities can develop accounting students professionally and intellectually. Accountants are often misperceived as reticent number crunchers that peck at calculators in the isolation of their office cubicles. Although the profession undoubtedly values quantitative ability, this outdated caricature does not reflect the modern day reality for accountants. In order to best serve their client or employer an accountant must communicate the value derived from their quantitative analyses both verbally and in writing. Universities are responding to the needs of the profession by offering Accounting Communication courses, but traditional lecture and demonstration methods of accounting instruction are insufficient on their own. Poetry-based learning activities are effective complements to existing methods. They help accountants distill the story behind the numbers. They put the precision of a student’s word choice on par with the precision of their calculations. They also improve the ability to engage complex accounting issues while maintaining economy of language. These communication abilities, when paired with elite technical skills, provide accounting students with a distinct competitive advantage in the workforce. Perhaps more importantly, poetry-based learning activities also foster intellectual curiosity, which is a hallmark of both personal and professional fulfillment.

The connection between poetry and accounting first occurred to me when I was practicing as a Certified Public Accountant for a firm in Denver, Colorado. By day I was an auditor that carefully scrutinized financial statements to see beyond the obvious. By night I was reading Mary Oliver poems, marveling at her ability to carefully scrutinize elements of nature and seeing well beyond the obvious. However, my enthusiasm for poetry could not simply switch off during working hours. While planning an audit of a casino in Blackhawk, Colorado, I found myself fixated on an impossibly large snowflake falling outside conference room window. As my colleagues around the conference room table attended to the details of their accounting ledgers and journal entries, I lapsed into a poetry induced trance in which I attended to the details of this snowflake, and I created a journal entry of my own.

Some people daydream at work. Others doodle in the margins of their legal pads. And some write bad poetry in concealed notebooks. I feared that my colleagues would consider me a flake, for lack of a better word, if this still life mash-up of Oliver and Grantland Rice became known. This spontaneous poem and other workplace diversions like it were hastily relegated to the back page of a slim journal that I entombed between the hardbacks of my bookshelves. My profession and personal interests seemed better off compartmentalized.

On the very same audit, however, my amateur interest in poetics crossed over to my profession in a startlingly useful way. The manager overseeing the casino engagement reviewed my audit team’s preliminary financial statements, and he noted the company’s bank loans spiked from one year to the next. He left me a voicemail asking curtly, “What’s the story with debt?” I preferred writing assignments to spreadsheets, and I zealously authored a six-page memo that delved into every technical aspect of the casino’s new loans: debt securitization, subordinate layers of debt, amortization schedules, disclosure requirements, the risk premium embedded in the annual interest rate, and the adequacy of future cash flows necessary to pay back the debt. Six pages may not seem like a very long document, but in a profession that values brevity, this memo was the Mahabharata of accounting literature. The manager opened my memo, scanned its content, and returned a single review comment via e-mail, which read: “Six pages? I think I’ll wait for the movie version.”

I revisited the manager’s initial prompt. What’s the story with debt? He was not asking for the technical details of the debt as we were planning the audit. Rather, he was asking for a concise narrative behind the number in the financial statements. In order to abstract the story behind that number, I contemplated a series of drilldown questions as if I were analyzing the motivations of a character in a narrative poem.

Card games are less popular, they are open for only a fraction of the casino’s operating hours, and they incur costs whether the card tables are occupied by patrons or not. The slot machines are increasingly popular with clientele, operate continuously, and generate revenue with limited associated costs. If the casino’s projections were correct, the highly profitable machines would pay for themselves within three to five years. Our client viewed the new debt as a low risk maneuver to increase profitability while meeting the demands of its customers.

This was a sufficient start. I isolated the story behind the numbers, but could I communicate it succinctly? I tried to tell the story in ten words or fewer. Our client acquired highly profitable slot machines, financed via debt. The ten-word narrative forced a decision on the most essential content. Could I refine the narrative even further? I used the classic “six-word story” challenge, which required the most precise, effective language possible. When my manager made his onsite visit to the casino, I was prepared with the six-word story: The casino is betting on slots!

The six-word story forced me to be concise in terms of content and wording. However, the deliberate word choice successfully engaged my audience. The term “betting” in this case was admittedly an attempt at wordplay on my part, but not for the sake of being clever. The word was loaded with implications: uncertainty, exposure, potential reward as well as hazard. Our gaming client was taking a calculated risk. They were dedicated to a strategic course and pushing their chips to the center of the table, so to speak. An understanding of the possible opportunities and perils of their machine gaming initiative was necessary before we could conduct an audit of their financial statements. My word choice commanded the attention of a manager with little patience for communication overhead. From this six-word story, we developed a risk-based audit plan centered on the accurate and fair presentation of our client’s debt.

Poetry enhanced my performance in that instance, and it continued to do so throughout my seventeen years in the profession. I developed a reputation as an effective wordsmith, which differentiated me from peers who struggled to communicate the value they derived from numbers. Managers frequently sought my input when they needed to translate technical language for nontechnical audiences, or when they needed to deliver difficult messages with tact and courtesy. I came to realize that my affinity for words did not make me a flake in a hard boiled professional environment. Rather, it was a valuable asset.

Integrating poetry with my profession also had another pleasantly unexpected outcome. It provided an element of job enrichment that sustained me throughout my career. The words “accounting” and “creative” are not typically associated with each other. However, the profession does value the creative use of intellect. Incorporating poetry in my work life was a means of engaging intellectually in my work, which sustained me through long hours and working weekends. After all, I needed the accounting profession to make a living, but I lived for things like poetry.¹

After seventeen years in corporate accounting, I traded my pinstripe suit for the tweed jacket. I was fortunate to start my teaching career at a women’s liberal arts college committed to personal and professional excellence. An education in the liberal arts tradition prepares students for the career they need and the lives they aspire to, and I was excited to play a role in achieving that mission. In one of my first classes, I opened up the semester with a poem: “The Summer Day,” by Oliver.

My students were expecting a simple twenty-minute syllabus review. They turned to each other to confirm: This is Accounting 201, right? Most of the students in that class were only a few years removed from high school. Roughly seventy percent of them were first generation college students and nearly half were from minority populations (Alverno 2018). Many of my students had math anxiety ranging from the mild (e.g. elevated heart rate) to the severe (e.g. something akin to number induced paralysis.) I suspect some of them harbored doubt as to whether they belonged in a college classroom. If nothing else, I suspect most of them harbored doubt about being in the right classroom when their accounting professor started reciting verse. I didn’t accidently duck into an English class, did I? The question about their wild and precious lives lingered as some students double checked the room numbers on their registration paperwork. Maybe he is in the wrong classroom? It was a valid question.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The question hangs over the room unanswered. I may have had a few takers if I had only asked “What is it you plan to do with your life?” That’s a simple question. Oliver demonstrates the power of concise poetic language with the thoughtful addition of two words: wild and precious. A life described as “wild” speaks to our spontaneous and carefree spirits. A life described as “precious” recognizes the value of an existence that needs to be preserved and maintained. The tension between the head and the heart is one that every student grapples with. I want to go on a road trip with friends, but I have midterms. I want to study Music, but I’m concerned about my job prospects. I want to travel abroad, but how will I afford it? With a mere two words, the poet is able to eloquently frame a tension that is omnipresent in the room.

Just as I was beginning to second guess my grand plan for opening the semester a student breaks the ice. Then another. And another. One student described her plans to deploy her business degree in social enterprise, perhaps in the service of immigrants. She hopes to do well financially by doing good. She described the sacrifices her parents made when they emigrated from Guatemala. I shared with her my grandparent’s immigration story, how my father was a first generation college student, and the trajectory he set for future generations. We connect on a personal level, and a relationship is formed. The pattern continues. I connect with classmates, and classmates connect with each other. The poetry introduction formed relationships at a greater level of depth than the typical name/hometown/major introduction ever could. There would be times that semester when I would push, pull, and drag students to the finish line. There were times when I had to convince them to embrace struggle and discomfort as it is necessary for growth. I had to persuade them that the “hard is what makes it good.”² It was easier to persuade them once a personal connection was made, which was fostered by a line of poetry. Perhaps more importantly, those connections influenced me and the way I teach. Once I connected with students and heard the sacrifices they made to attend college, I became increasingly committed to seeing them succeed. My former colleagues in industry thought I escaped the pressures of corporate life when I transitioned to teaching, but I’ve never put as much pressure on myself to prepare and perform as I did in those early days in the classroom. Once I connected with my students, it was impossible to do otherwise.

The poetry introduction was consistently successful in classes of recent high school graduates. However, I was hesitant to try it in my weeknight classes. Those classes were comprised of adult learners with jobs, families, and life experience often much greater than my own. Furthermore, their education was either self-funded or funded by their employers. Perhaps as a consequence, they seemed to have a sense of urgency about skill acquisition and very high expectations of their instructors. Was this a hasty generalization rooted in my own teaching insecurities? It likely was. Regardless, I w...