An empty grave

So, nobody reads poetry anymore?

Still, there are whispers here and there

Spoken in hushed tones

As if someone has passed

Poems visiting as ghosts

Disappearing with the dawn

Three-word slogans cast a spell

So nobody reads poetry anymore

As if there is nothing left to know

Truth submerged by fast-paced gabble

Sport on every channel, the race is on 

So nobody reads poetry anymore

‘Manufactured consent’ tells us so

What to say, how to think

How to for dummies

So nobody reads poetry anymore

Even so poetry persists …

In the love we show 

Within words that inspire 

Fighting the good fight

Such is the poetry of life

That nobody reads, forever recited 

Passed down entwined generations

Sparking the imagination for evermore

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. An empty grave reflects on poetry’s uneasy place in modern life — mourning its supposed disappearance while revealing that it still endures wherever language, memory, and human feeling resist being flattened into noise.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.