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.
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
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