John Okrent: This Costly Season
I picture Whitman,
wending his way through wounded Union
soldiers—his democratic nostrils, the smell of dead
or dying flesh. And in all the dooryards, the smell of lilacs.
Rachel Hadas: Ides of March MMXX
But who
could hear me through my mask?
Don’t ask.
Love
wears a glove.
Rachel Hadas: ‘Laugh right in its face’ – a poet reflects on her craft’s defiant role in the middle of a war
Poets write poetry to help them come to terms with the terror of their times. The process of writing those poems, and the process of reading them, both offer respite.
Derrick Z. Jackson: Nearly One Million US Deaths from COVID-19 | The Grim Consequences of Sidelining Science
One million US deaths from COVID-19. Catatonic politics on climate change. Communities suffocating from environmental injustice. All these issues are tragically linked by the hardening divisions in the United States … Continue reading
Rachel Hadas: February 29, 2020
That extra day, that ordinary day,
I got where I was going on the train
and taught the lyric leap, as per the plan;
then, tired, happy, bathed in poetry,
caught a train and travelled back again
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: News
our people who do the hard work
of America,
dying as caregivers
Danielle DeTiberus: In the Middle of Fucking You, I Pause
Twenty years together and yet
You were new to me again.
Stephanie L. Harper: A Crown Most Unroyal
Some humans really don’t object to dying
as much as they hold dear an asshat’s right
to choose to spread disease over complying
Michelle D. Holmes, MD, DRPH: The Folly of School Openings as a Zero-Sum Game
We need to address the needs of students—and parents, and teachers. One size does not fit all, and race complicates the challenge.
Michelle Bitting: Pandemic Mask Sonnet
The world’s gone mad at the wheel
While bees and seas soar for bloom, germs and chaos
Straining against reorder.
Paul Christensen: What Isolation Teaches Us
The magpies have all packed up and left with the last straggling tourists. I don’t hear their falsetto cries anymore, and I miss them. I love to see two such … Continue reading
Christopher Bursk: The Plague in Early Spring
The first week in the first year of the plague,
when we told ourselves there was no plague,
the flowers were more than willing
to confirm our opinion.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Complaint About Missing Friends after Ten Months of the Pandemic
Verlaine threw pail after pail after
cold water pail on the gravel under Rimbaud’s
windows, to cool the air as he slept.
Christopher Bursk: Nor are we fit to force our way across
when I was a child
I wanted with all my heart to be the one
to suffer
Vox Populi 