Social Significance

They tell me now
They want a poem
With social significance
With social and economic meanings
(Preferably of their own choosing)
That now is the open season
On Ivory Towers

Tell me, comrade:
Is there any poem
Which doesn't have
This social significance?
No matter how thin its inspiration
Or banal its subject,
My dear friend,
Can you imagine a poem,
Which is still a poem,
And doesn't have
Social significance?

If it is a poem
It will affect people:
Thence will spring
Its social significance.

1 May 1939