NEXT Saturday is A Day Of Conversation, aiming to reclaim conversation from “threats from the digital world, the political shout-fest and the tribal and social groupings that divide us”, according to the award-winning poet behind the Scotland-wide event.
Tom Pow, who also leads the day’s parent initiative A Year Of Conservation, says you need not even leave your home to take part.
“You don’t have to step outside your door and say: ‘Well, where is this Day Of Conversation?’” he says. “Theatre can happen in domestic spaces; conversations have to happen in domestic spaces.”
A Day Of Conversation is presented in partnership with the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival and Get Creative, the festival run by Voluntary Arts Scotland which sees grassroots creative groups across the country open their doors to welcome newcomers. The day will feature events pre-planned by a number of organisations in Scotland’s cultural world such as the Royal Society Edinburgh, the National Library of Scotland, Scottish Book Trust, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, the Scottish Poetry Library, The Playwrights’ Studio, Wigtown Festival Company, StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews and Edinburgh International Book Festival. However Pow, who was the latter’s writer-in residence for three years, says there’s plenty opportunity for more people to take part in a more casual, impulsive way.
“Our aspirations are the same,” says Pow, honorary senior research fellow at Glasgow University Dumfries where he lectured in creative writing and storytelling for around a decade.
“We all believe in the value of creativity in helping people to meet, to be together and help each other. Conversation teaches and nourishes fellow feeling.
“The benefits are so clear: the pleasure of sharing ideas and experiences, the nurturing of empathy, friendship and love from the cradle, if not from the womb, onwards.”
And while the likes of Facebook can be useful for planning meet-ups, we would be wise to note that social media is not a replacement for conversation, just as its common means of delivery, the mobile phone, has long been bemoaned as an impediment to face-to-face exchange.
“Just having a mobile on the table impedes the efficiency of a conversation,” says Pow.
“By doing that you are saying to the other person that they are important at the moment, but that something else more important might happen. We’ve all had conversations where we’re aware that when we’re speaking, the other person isn’t listening but just waiting for us to stop so they can pick up where they left off,” says Pow. “That’s not a real conversation.”
A true conversation, he says, involves building rapport thorough the gaze – looking at and taking in a person’s visual cues – taking turns in the roles of speaker and listener and an attitude which is open to the possibility of change.
“People can express terrible things on social media but when you put them face to face with that human hurt they feel terrible,” says Pow. “The centre part of the word conversation – verse – is about change. I think everyone wants a decent conversation that is followed through rather than people banging the same old drums and not listening.”
FOR those terrified by the thought of awkward conversations, veteran US interviewer Terry Gross recently told The New York Times that the only icebreaker you’ll ever need is “tell me about yourself”. Posing a broader question than “what do you do?” allows people to lead you to who they are on their terms.
“My mother used to always say: ‘Ask people about themselves – everybody has a story’,” says Pow. “I’ve had a lot of thought about what makes a good conversation and I think it’s curiosity. Be curious about the other person.”
More ideas for conversation-starters, such as “What would you do if you had three hands?” and “Was Goldilocks a robber?” can be found via A Day Of Conversation’s toolkit at bit.ly/ConversationToolkit
Developed in tandem with Pow’s wife and daughter – an early years teacher – the conversation-starters were then tested by the writer’s extended family.
“My wife used them with friends she’s known for 20 years and she found out things she never knew before,” says Pow. “We know they work and they are also great fun – enjoyment is a good indicator of a good conversation.”
Pow says he hopes the day helps create positive impact.
“It’s partly a response to Brexit, to try and keep conversations going,” he says. “The idea is we look to conversations in our communities as well as outwith our borders internationally. I want to live in a country that is opened-armed, rather than one which has its arms close to its chest, holding everything in.”
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