The ele­gant irony of Elaine Equi​’s lament — what the Ger­mans, I am told, call, ​“Welt­müdigkeit“, (world-weari­ness) — in her poem, ​“In an Unre­lat­ed”, about the very con­tem­po­rary phe­nom­e­non of ​“the news cycle”, is that despite what may seem like a grand sep­a­ra­tion of human beings in the world, we, in the end, have a com­mon sense of col­lec­tive con­nec­tion. In oth­er words, the poet rec­og­nizes that we are all in this thing togeth­er. This is one splen­did use of poet­ry, to be the ​“camp­fire” of our humanity.