Poetry in the Age of Wireless

Poetry in the Age of Wireless

Unfashionable now —

The long hours spent

Shaping lines,

For a dwindling clientele

Of other poets

Who might still notice

The workmanship:

The craft,

The grain of the line,

A phrase honed smooth

Or left rough as timber.

The rest pass by without looking.

And yet the trade persists —

If trade is even the word —

Not for profit or praise

But because past connections

Must be held intact

Even now, in the wireless age;

Because the old rites insist:

To fletch the arrow’s flight,

To set the type by hand,

To wake the city with a window‑tap,

To coax the lamps to stand

In trembling light

Along the Square and Strand.