{"id":82531,"date":"2025-05-25T07:46:51","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T06:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=82531"},"modified":"2025-05-25T07:46:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T06:46:51","slug":"how-many-poets-does-it-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/05\/25\/how-many-poets-does-it-take\/","title":{"rendered":"How many poets does it take?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How many poets does it take to change a lightbulb? It's more complicated than you thought, by some way.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vjD7BLJ3MvM?si=rnsXq7PxGepUIBlz\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is the audio version:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"How many poets does it take?\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);height:150px;\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=86hiy-18b883b-pb&from=pb6admin&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Arial&skin=f6f6f6&font-color=auto&logo_link=episode_page&btn-skin=c73a3a\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is the transcript:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>How many poets does it take to change a light bulb?<\/p>\n<p>That's an important question. You might not think so, but I believe it is, and I'm offering you today a poem that was written by a commentator on my blog called Jon Harvey.<\/p>\n<p>Jon has served as a local councillor in the UK, and he wrote this poem to explore an idea which I have explored on my blog of late, and that is the difference between what is called linear and non-linear thinking and the consequences that the difference between those two types of thinking have for political decision making.<\/p>\n<p>For those who don't know about it, linear decision making is intensely rational, and step, by step, by step, you can move from A to B, to C, to D and E , and that's the way in which most decisions are made by most politicians in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>You might think it's a very logical thing to do, but the problem with it is that you end up with rather routine, dull, uninspired, and frequently, very narrow decisions which fail to take into consideration all the information that is required to reach a proper conclusion about complex problems, which most of those things that of course our politicians are required to look at are.<\/p>\n<p>They aren't simple.<\/p>\n<p>They involve vast numbers of different variables coming together to try to meet a combination of needs using a combination of resources. And that's what non-linear thinking does.<\/p>\n<p>Non-linear thinking is a concept which is particularly noted amongst those who are considered to be neurodivergent in our society, and those are people who have things like autism and ADHD, or the combination, which is AuDHD, or who are maybe dyslexic, or dyspraxic, or whatever. They seem to be very good at making the types of connections that actually create complex outcomes to complex problems . They may have difficulty explaining how they've got from A to E, but they'll actually get to J, because they've seen problems, which linear thinking does not.<\/p>\n<p>Why did Jon offer me this poem? Well, he offered it because poets are a particular group in our society who are very likely to be non-linear thinkers. And so this is what he had to say, and I want to share it with you because I really enjoyed his poem.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>How many poets<\/p>\n<p>How many does it take<br \/>\nTo change a light bulb?<br \/>\nYou want to know..?<br \/>\nTen<br \/>\nIt\u2019s a made up number<br \/>\nPlucked from a random synapse<br \/>\nTen poets<\/p>\n<p>Ten poets:<\/p>\n<p>One to hold the bulb,<br \/>\nTo cradle it with care<br \/>\nTo honour it<br \/>\nTo see it<br \/>\nTo be it.<\/p>\n<p>A second to worry<br \/>\nAbout whether any word<br \/>\nRhymes with bulb<br \/>\nAnd no word does<br \/>\nDr Internet confirms<\/p>\n<p>A third to imagine<br \/>\nMagical metaphors<br \/>\nHow bulbs light up our lives<br \/>\nHow bulbs are binary<br \/>\nOff or on<\/p>\n<p>A fourth to shoehorn analogies<br \/>\nOf how bulbs are like small suns<br \/>\nAre like the stars of our homes<br \/>\nGuiding us like torches in the night<\/p>\n<p>A fifth to talk of love<br \/>\nAnd passion<br \/>\nAnd devotion<br \/>\nOf how bulbs just fit<br \/>\nAnd slide<br \/>\nInto their screw fittings<br \/>\nOr bayonets\u2026<\/p>\n<p>A sixth to imagine<br \/>\nA world without light bulbs<br \/>\nA desolate desert of darkness<br \/>\nA future to grieve for and despair<\/p>\n<p>A seventh to hold the ladder<br \/>\nBecause poets need to be safe<br \/>\nEven when their words stir, challenge<br \/>\nAnd upset<\/p>\n<p>An eighth to evoke history<br \/>\nTo recall times gone past<br \/>\nOf Edison<br \/>\nAnd Tesla<br \/>\nAnd Benjamin Franklin<\/p>\n<p>A ninth to sense<br \/>\nThe bulbous<br \/>\nThe globular<br \/>\nThe spherical<br \/>\nThe oval<br \/>\nThe infinite symmetry<\/p>\n<p>And a tenth to hold the poet holding the chair.<\/p>\n<p>Ten poets<br \/>\nChanging light bulbs<br \/>\nFor the world<\/p>\n<p>Buckingham<br \/>\n24 March 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How many poets does it take to change a lightbulb? It&#8217;s more complicated than you thought, by some way. This is the audio version: This<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/05\/25\/how-many-poets-does-it-take\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,211,16,219,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-education","category-ethics","category-neurodiversity","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82604,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82531\/revisions\/82604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}