There's a poem recited in the darkest & dankest halls amongst the worsening & worst. It's not a poem you would ever hear - why would you? - but it's kept in memory just in case. You never know when, in the course of the average workaday day, a working person might be hankering for a bit of verse. It is then when recitation might be an option - but maybe not even then.
Have you heard that pram, though, you might be asking. The answer is of course no. One doesn't often find oneself in the darkest & dankest halls in this day & age. Indeed, one is more likely to suffer through the half-hearted misheard song lyrics muttered in the dentist or doctor office, or the improperly retranslated muzak impressions which used to be the mainstay of malls.
But is this a crisis of poetry, you worry. The answer is probably not, because let's be honest here we don't want poetry to think there is a crisis. Poetry pretends it thrives in crisis when obviously it does not. Poetry barely manages to get to movies on time. Poetry is more comfortable watching wine & whiskey age than being on the front lines when immediacy is a necessity.
In fact, this poem about which we are speaking is older than most conflicts, older even than most affections. & though it suffers from corruption because of its oral transmission, it retains a kind of purity that's the result of the affection of those who learn it. & again, this is not the time nor place for that poem. Find yourself in the darkest & dankest halls if you really must know it.
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