The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use

Host: The café sat at the corner of a narrow street, half-forgotten by the rest of the city. Its windows were fogged from the heat inside, and through them, the night rain streaked in long, shimmering lines — like verses sliding off the page of a tired poem. Inside, the world was small: the smell of coffee, the low murmur of strangers talking softly, the sound of jazz drifting from an old speaker in the corner.

Host: Jack sat near the window, his notebook open, the edges of the pages curled from too many late nights. His pen hovered above the paper, unmoving — not for lack of words, but for too many of them. Across the table, Jeeny sipped her tea, the steam coiling around her face like smoke around light.

Jeeny: (watching him) “T. S. Eliot once said, ‘The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.’”

Jack: (grinning without looking up) “So he’s saying poetry’s just emotional recycling?”

Jeeny: “No. He’s saying poetry’s alchemy — turning the ordinary into something that wasn’t there before.”

Jack: (leans back) “I don’t buy it. You can’t write what you don’t feel.”

Jeeny: “You can’t feel everything you write, Jack. That’s the trap. The poet’s job isn’t to live the emotion — it’s to translate it.”

Jack: “And how do you translate what doesn’t exist?”

Jeeny: “By listening. To what hides beneath the feeling.”

Host: The light above them flickered faintly. Outside, a car passed, splashing through puddles, the headlights sweeping briefly across the café floor.

Jack: “You make it sound like poets are surgeons. Cutting open ordinary things just to find what’s underneath.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Eliot wasn’t talking about emotion as we feel it — he was talking about emotion as material. The raw clay of language.”

Jack: “So you mean poetry isn’t emotion, it’s structure.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s transformation. When you write, you don’t cry into the paper. You distill the cry into something that outlasts the pain.”

Host: She spoke softly, her words carrying the weight of someone who had loved both art and heartbreak long enough to know their difference. Jack finally looked up, his eyes tired but alive — the kind of weariness that comes not from life, but from observation.

Jack: “You think poetry makes sense of life?”

Jeeny: “No. It doesn’t explain — it endures. That’s different.”

Jack: “So the poet isn’t a philosopher?”

Jeeny: “No. The poet’s a witness. A translator of moments that never knew how to introduce themselves.”

Host: The rain pressed harder against the glass now, a quiet percussion that gave rhythm to her words. Jack tapped his pen against the notebook, thinking, the sound faint but deliberate.

Jack: “You ever think poetry’s just a lie we tell ourselves beautifully?”

Jeeny: “Of course it is. But all truth starts as a lie until we learn how to believe it.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You’d have made Eliot proud.”

Jeeny: “He’d have hated me. I’m too sentimental for his precision.”

Jack: “You? Sentimental?”

Jeeny: “I believe ordinary feelings can be holy. That’s why I love poetry — it sanctifies the mundane.”

Host: Jack finally put pen to paper, writing a few lines — quick, instinctive, rough. Jeeny watched him quietly, the small half-smile of someone who recognizes when creation has resumed breathing.

Jack: “You know, maybe Eliot was right. The world doesn’t need new emotions. We’ve got enough of them — jealousy, love, fear, loss. What changes is how we name them.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Every poem is a new name for an old ache.”

Jack: “And sometimes, that’s enough.”

Jeeny: “It has to be.”

Host: She stirred her tea absently, the spoon clinking against the cup — a quiet metronome marking the pace of thought.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how real feelings fade, but the memory of them becomes sharper? That’s what Eliot meant — poetry isn’t about the heat of the emotion; it’s about the echo that lingers once the fire’s out.”

Jack: “So we’re all just writing echoes?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But echoes remind us there was once a sound.”

Host: The rain softened. The café’s warmth felt heavier now, filled with the kind of intimacy that comes from ideas spoken at the edge of fatigue.

Jack: “You think poetry still matters? In a world where no one listens unless it’s loud?”

Jeeny: “It matters more. Because it’s the only thing that whispers and still gets heard.”

Jack: “You talk like poetry’s alive.”

Jeeny: “It is. It’s breath caught in ink.”

Host: He looked down at what he’d written — a few lines that weren’t perfect, but felt honest. He read them aloud softly:

Jack: “She said the rain was tired of falling, but fell anyway — because gravity, like love, never learns restraint.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “That’s good, Jack. You’ve done exactly what Eliot meant. You took something simple — rain — and made it ache in a new way.”

Jack: “Maybe it’s not about what you feel, then. Maybe it’s about what you let others feel.”

Jeeny: “That’s communication, Jack. The same way Will Cotton said art is communication — poetry is the same. Just quieter.”

Host: The rain stopped. Outside, the wet streets gleamed under the streetlights, the world made new by water and time.

Jeeny: “Eliot knew something most of us forget — that emotion is temporary, but expression can be eternal. The poet’s job isn’t to feel more deeply, but to make the ordinary reveal its hidden pulse.”

Jack: “You make it sound like we all carry poems without realizing it.”

Jeeny: “We do. Every sigh, every memory, every regret — they’re all drafts waiting for language.”

Host: She smiled, finishing her tea. Jack looked at her, then down at his notebook, a small flicker of gratitude softening his face.

Jack: “You think anyone will ever read this?”

Jeeny: “Someone will. Maybe not now, maybe not soon. But words have patience. They wait for the right ears.”

Host: The clock above the counter ticked gently. The barista yawned, the sound of closing time approaching.

Host: Jack closed his notebook and stood, tucking it under his arm.

Jack: “You know, I think Eliot was both wrong and right. You don’t find new emotions — but sometimes, you find new ways to survive the old ones.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s poetry — survival in disguise.”

Host: They stepped out into the cool night. The rain had left the streets glistening — puddles reflecting the neon lights like words written twice.

Host: And as they walked beneath the faint hum of the city, T. S. Eliot’s words lingered in the air between them — that the poet’s work is not to invent feeling, but to refine it, distill it, shape it into something that whispers truth after the heart has fallen silent.

Host: The city exhaled around them — alive, ordinary, miraculous. And in that small, trembling quiet, two souls walked together, surrounded by poetry they didn’t need to write — because they were already living it.