Poetry is not dead. Do you hear me? It’s not just for people in posh universities or old people at tea parties. Poetry is alive, goddammit! Poetry has a history almost as long as humanity itself. Before we held poetry up as art, it played a far more important role—that of memory. Through rhythm, rhyme, and repetition, people passed on their history and the memory of their people. In this way, spoken poetry predates writing itself.