Williamsburg Regional Library

Together in a sudden strangeness, America's poets respond to the pandemic, edited by Alice Quinn

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poetry

Together in a sudden strangeness

1153521414

edited by Alice Quinn

America's poets respond to the pandemic

In this urgent outpouring of American voices, our poets speak to us as they shelter in place, addressing our collective fear, grief, and hope from eloquent and diverse individual perspectives.As the novel coronavirus and its devastating effects began to spread in the United States and around the world, Alice Quinn reached out to poets across the country to see if, and what, they were writing under quarantine. Overwhelmed by the response, the onetime New Yorker poetry editor and recent former director of the Poetry Society of America began collecting the compassionate verses that were arriving in her inbox, assembling this various, intimate, and intricate portrait of our suddenly altered reality. Whether grieving for relatives they are separated from, recovering from illness themselves, attending to suddenly complicated household tasks, or considering the bravery of medical workers and the inequities in our society that amplify sorrow and demand our engagement, our poets are just like us, but with the words to describe what can feel unspeakably difficult and strange. From fierce and resilient to wistful, darkly humorous, and emblematically reverent about the earth and the vulnerability of human beings in frightening times, the poems in this collection provide wisdom and companionship, depths of feeling that enliven our spirits, and a poignant summoning to the page of spring's inevitable return

How will this pandemic affect poetry? / Julia Alvarez -- Crown prayer / Sarah Arvio -- Come back, come back / Jesse Ball -- from During the pandemic / Rick Barot -- Still life / Ellen Bass -- Aprés moi / Erin Belieu -- Dad poem / Joshua Bennett -- Haunt / April Bernard -- Ode / Jill Bialosky -- Men waiting for a train / David Biespiel -- Facetime / George Bilgere -- Longer prayer / Sophie Cabot Black -- Plague diary / Traci Brimhall -- Say think you say I'm sorry / Jericho Brown -- Marvel / Stephanie Burt -- New nice / Danielle Chapman -- May day / Nicholas Christopher -- After the Apocalypse / Ama Codjoe -- Poem I wrote after I asked you if cereal can expire / Catherine Cohen -- I see on Zoom he's growing taller by the day / Elizabeth J. Coleman -- Sequestration / Billy Collins -- At CVS wearing a mask I buy plastic Easter eggs for my daughters / Nicole Cooley -- Sheltering in place / Peter Cooley -- Weather heard as music / Timothy Donnelly -- ***** Corona diary / Cornelius Eady -- Cards / John Freeman -- Aubade / Forrest Gander -- For the rookie neurologist in the plague / Suzanne Gardinier -- Leaving Evanston / Deborah Garrison -- Easter Sunday poem / Tammy Melody Gomez -- Desert lily / Rigoberto González -- COVID-19 lockdown, Easter weekend / George Green -- If the cure for AIDS, / Linda Gregerson -- Flowers for Tanisha / Rachel Eliza Griffiths -- Six months from Patient Zero / Eliza Griswold -- If indeed I am ill, brother, / Julia Guez -- Voyages / Nathalie Handal -- Equinox at home, 2020 / Brooks Haxton -- Future of everything / Aleksandar Hemon -- :::[a ragged white moth passes by]::: / Brenda Hillman -- Eight people / Edward Hirsch -- Today, when I could do nothing / Jane Hirshfield -- April / Richie Hofmann -- Watching the full moon in a time of pandemic / Garrett Hongo -- Ballina / Fanny Howe -- Ides of March, 2020 / Didi Jackson -- Invocation / Major Jackson -- 4/12/2020 / Fady Joudah -- Mulberries / Stephen Kampa -- I've been following a magnolia / Vincent Katz -- My heart cannot accept it all -- Susan Kinsolving -- Elder Care / Ron KoertgeSheltering at home / John Koethe -- from Requiem / Yusef Komunyakaa -- Burning one / Li-Young Lee -- Prism cell / Brad Leithauser -- As if / Dana Levin -- End of poetry / Ada Limón -- Quarantine / Dave Lucas -- American nurse forsees her death / Amit Majmudar -- Batshit / Sally Wen Mao -- Matzoh / Gail Mazur -- I hear the wild birds singing tangled roads / Shane McCrae -- Conditional / Maureen N. McLane -- Corona / Dante Micheaux -- Isolation, week two, sixth day of spring / Susan Minot **** -- Dance/ Susan Mitchell -- Storm / Kamilah Aisha Moon -- Cheese, almonds, eggs / Jim Moore -- Vallejo / Thomás Q. Morín -- Because we want to imagine / Laura Mullen -- Koan / Carol Muske-Dukes -- April sixteen twenty twenty / Eileen Myles -- Order to disperse / D. Nurkse -- Two days in March / John Okrent -- Poem for my students / Sharon Olds -- And the people stayed home / Kitty O'Meara -- Aftermaths / Tommy Orange -- Tea for you, too / Ron Padgett -- At the hardware store on the island (March 21, 2020) / Sarah Paley -- Moonwalk in Vermont / Jay Parini -- Sing a darkness / Carl Phillips -- Fantasia in a time of plague / Rowan Ricardo Phillips -- Plague poem / Katha Pollitt -- Meditation on transmission / Dean Rader -- Weather / Claudia Rankine -- April, Walkley Road / Clare Rossini -- St. Sebastian interceding for the plague-stricken / Mary Jo Salter -- Gone / Grace Schulman -- April 5, 2020 / Vijay Seshadri -- Pandemicon / Diane Seuss -- Spillover / Brenda Shaughnessy -- inoculation against innocence / Evie Shockley -- Unwinding the wound / Elizabeth Spires -- Three octets / Susan Stewart -- Under juncos, the baby stones/ Tess Taylor -- Existential / Anne Waldman -- Apartment / Noah Warren -- Naturally / Rosanna Warren -- Canal nocturne / Rex Wilder -- Onlookers and Reading Pascal in Quarantine / Christian Wiman -- Private life / Mark Wunderlich -- Concealed host / Jenny Xie -- Stones and stars / Jeffrey Yang -- Shine and Resurrection / Kevin Young -- Poem for Rupi Kaur / Matthew Zapruder

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