All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the

Host: The rain fell in slow silver threads, soft against the window of a small, dimly lit bookstore. The air smelled of ink, dust, and forgotten sentences. The walls were lined with uneven stacks of poetry volumes, their spines faded, their pages alive with the quiet breath of language.

Jack sat at a wooden table, his coat draped carelessly over a chair, a half-empty cup of black coffee cooling beside him. His eyes, sharp and grey like worn steel, were fixed on an open book of Stevie Smith’s collected works. Jeeny stood by the shelves, running her fingers along a row of slim volumes, humming faintly — a melody with no clear beginning or end.

The quote lingered between them, fragile yet powerful:
“All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.” — Stevie Smith

Jeeny: “You know what I love about that, Jack? The humility of it. The way she reminds us that poetry isn’t about the poet — it’s about the message that passes through them, like a whisper from the universe.”

Jack: “A whisper, or an echo? Maybe poets don’t speak for the universe at all. Maybe they just dress confusion in rhythm and call it truth.”

Host: The lamp beside them flickered, the light trembling like a pulse caught between faith and fatigue. Jeeny turned, a small smile playing on her lips, her eyes deep and full of quiet defiance.

Jeeny: “You think too much, Jack. Poetry isn’t about truth — it’s about connection. It’s a bridge. You can’t measure it in facts. You feel it, or you don’t.”

Jack: “Connection? That’s a nice word for manipulation. A poet stirs emotions — sure. But so does propaganda. What makes one sacred and the other deceitful?”

Jeeny: “Intent. A poet listens — as Smith said — not to control, but to understand. A propagandist speaks to be heard. The poet speaks because they must.”

Jack: “And yet, they still write their name at the bottom, don’t they? You call it humility, I call it vanity wrapped in verse.”

Host: The rain pressed harder against the glass, as if the world outside were arguing too. The rhythm of droplets merged with the faint hum of traffic, forming an accidental kind of music.

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. A poet’s name is just an address, not an ego. The words belong to everyone who reads them. Don’t you see? The poet fades the moment someone understands.”

Jack: “And what if no one understands? What if all that ‘communication’ is just a self-indulgent echo bouncing around empty rooms?”

Jeeny: “Then it still mattered — because the act of listening did. Smith said the poet’s job is to listen, not to be understood. Maybe poetry isn’t about delivering answers, but about being brave enough to ask questions that don’t have any.”

Host: The clock above the door ticked, each second marking a rhythm neither of them could ignore. The bookstore felt suspended — a world within a world, where words replaced air and meaning could be breathed like smoke.

Jack: “You think poetry saves people?”

Jeeny: “I think it reminds them they’re not alone. That’s saving enough.”

Jack: “Funny. I’ve read a lot of poetry in my life, and it never saved me. It just described my pain better than I could.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that is salvation — to know that someone else has been there too. That even your silence has a language.”

Host: Jack’s hand tightened around the coffee cup. He didn’t look up, but his jaw clenched. Jeeny watched him, the way one watches a storm gather over calm water — inevitable, tragic, beautiful.

Jack: “You sound like every artist trying to justify suffering. You think pain is noble. It’s not. It’s just... exhausting.”

Jeeny: “No. Pain isn’t noble. But transforming it into something that touches another — that’s noble. That’s what Smith meant. The poet listens to pain, translates it, and then lets it go. That’s why she said there will always be another poet — because suffering and beauty never end.”

Jack: “So, poetry is a recycling plant for emotion.”

Jeeny: “If you like. But it’s also the only language we have for what can’t be said any other way. Science can tell you how the heart beats. Poetry tells you why it breaks.”

Host: A faint smile tugged at Jack’s lips, the first sign of softness breaking through his usual cynicism. He leaned back, watching the raindrops race down the windowpane like fleeting verses sliding into oblivion.

Jack: “You know, there’s something ironic about calling poets unimportant. Without them, half of history would be silent. Revolutions, love, grief — all forgotten if no one had written them down.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And yet, every poet vanishes when their words take root. They stop being authors and become mirrors. Smith understood that. She wasn’t diminishing poetry — she was setting it free.”

Jack: “But doesn’t that make it pointless, in a way? If one poet dies and another takes their place, what’s the purpose? It’s like trying to hold smoke.”

Jeeny: “You don’t hold smoke, Jack. You breathe it.”

Host: Her voice fell into the air like a soft incantation. The rain outside eased, the sound gentling into a whisper, as if the world had paused to listen. Jack stared at her — not with disbelief, but with that quiet ache that comes from understanding something too late.

Jack: “So all the poet has to do is listen.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And in listening, they vanish — but their silence becomes everyone’s song.”

Host: He nodded slowly, the weight of the thought pressing into him like a quiet revelation. The lamplight haloed Jeeny’s hair, the flicker giving her the faint glow of a portrait that might outlive them both.

Jack: “You ever wonder what they listen to, Jeeny? God? The world?”

Jeeny: “Neither. They listen to what we all ignore — the spaces between thoughts, the tremors between words. The places where meaning hides.”

Jack: “Then maybe poets aren’t unimportant. Maybe they’re just temporary translators of eternity.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And when one translator falls silent, another begins to listen.”

Host: The room seemed to breathe again, as though the books themselves had exhaled. The rain had stopped entirely now, leaving behind a soft sheen on the windows — a world washed clean, ready for new words.

Jeeny closed a book gently, the sound echoing like a heartbeat in the quiet.

Jeeny: “That’s why poetry will never die, Jack. Because every human heart keeps trying to speak — and someone, somewhere, will always be listening.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s all communication ever was — not noise, not intellect — just the attempt to reach across the void.”

Jeeny: “And the hope that someone reaches back.”

Host: They sat in stillness, surrounded by the ghosts of poems, by stories that refused to fade. Outside, the streetlights flickered on, one by one — like words finding their places in an unfinished sentence.

The evening exhaled. The world turned.
And somewhere, another poet began to listen.