Name: The Slowdown.

Appearance: Every weekday, starting in late November.

Is this some kind of economic catastrophe? We must be due another one by now. Nope. It’s a podcast.

I’m sure we’re not due another one of those. Perhaps not, but it’s coming.

What will it contain? A very small amount of poetry.

That’s very nearly my favourite amount. Splendid. Each day one short poem will be read by Tracy K Smith, the poet laureate of the US. The episodes are just five minutes long.

So it’s a very quick slowdown. I guess.

Wait, the US has a poet laureate? That’s right. The Americans stole our idea in 1937.

Honestly. First it’s the English language, then democracy, now this. Do they want to be an independent country or not? Yeah … anyway … In her lovely, calm voice, Smith says: “Life is fast, intense and sometimes bewildering, but poetry offers a way of slowing things down, looking at them closely, mining each moment for all that it houses.”

That’s a mixed metaphor. Look, this is a nice idea cooked up by the Library of Congress, the Poetry Foundation and American Public Media. Are you just going to snipe from the sidelines?

Yes. Perhaps you really need some poetry then. Smith says that poems are “a necessity – a means of living more deeply with reality”.

I say they’re weird books that stop after half a page so you don’t get bored. Well, I’m glad to say that the tide is turning against you.

I can tell. After decades of decline, the number of Americans who reported reading poetry in the previous year has risen sharply. According to data from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), 11.7% of adults read some verse in 2017.

Liars. Not necessarily. Among its other uses, Instagram has recently become a very popular platform for sharing poetry. Poets such as Rupi Kaur have millions of followers. According to the NEA data, young people were especially likely to have read a poem. This now seems to be a thing.

What kinds of poems are we talking about? “we need more love/not from men/but from ourselves/and each other”. That’s one of Kaur’s from last week.

That’s banal. Well, I think it’s important to consider the spaces between meanings … Oh, all right, yes, it is banal. But at least it means you’ve read a poem in 2018.

Gah! 1-0 to poetry.

Do say: “Poetry that ends quickly and doesn’t require reading? Where do I sign?”

Don’t say: “Oh God, I’m so busy and bewildered, and now I’m falling behind on my poetry-listening.”