The After-Times: Poetry During a Pandemic, and Maybe Beyond

 

When COVID-19 was recognized as a threat to an unvaccinated population back in March, 2020, my employer, a seasonal retreat center gearing up for another round of workshops, sent the staff home for about two weeks, to be on the safe side. My Beloved and I picked up a bottle of minty hand sanitizer at the Dollar Store for safety’s sake. Two weeks soon became five months, and I was finally furloughed at the beginning of August, after working remotely. I'd watched the call volume drop sharply as the season’s opening was pushed further and further out, then finally cancelled. 

 

 While some writers thrive under pressure, I am not one of them. I had my freelancing experience back in the mid-2000s, when I’d saved up a few bucks from a miserable gig at Cosmodemonic Communications. I got by well enough, but it wasn’t the time to begin a freelance career. I’ve come to learn I need the security of a 9 to 5 to free myself up enough to be creative. It does cut into my time to do so, but it’s the only way for me. 

 

 After I was furloughed, I panicked. I tried to continue my routine- short walk at 12:00 noon, my own low impact version of yoga in the morning. Despite adequate unemployment support, I still worried I’d be out on the street in a heartbeat. A friend offered me some job coaching time, which I needed for sanity’s sake as well as to bring my own employment worthiness up to snuff. It turned out I was a far more marketable commodity than I thought. I picked up a couple of unpleasant gigs over the months, and with every new set of tasks, every new computer program, I realized that I actually missed my retreat center work. 

 

 I was called back in March of 2021, a year after this unimaginable era had begun. Again I worked from home until the beginning of July, when those of us remaining on the payroll (about half as many folks as before) reconvened on campus to birth this ‘bridge’ season. Half as many classes and participants. All must be vaccinated. Incredibly, there was kickback about this, from staff and guests alike. I gained a private office, so many had been let go. I work better and harder, and get to crank WQXR between calls. I go home exhausted. I sleep in fits and starts. I worry about the second round of the virus. 

 

 I spent a good deal of time while working from home organizing files, discarding that which no longer thrills me. I began a project to scan my old newspaper clippings onto a flash drive, which will itself probably be obsolete in a few years. I finalized my Ziegfeld poems, and sent strong query letters to a dozen college presses. I compiled a chapbook of fairly recent poems, and almost printed it before I spilled a cup of coffee on my old laptop on Memorial Day. I could reconstruct the work, much of which was backed up onto a flash drive of its own. It was the harsh reality of how dependent I was on technology to practice my art that seemed to shake me so. 

 

 In the last year I’ve had to replace both the computer and the printer. The printer in particular is the latest version of my old reliable HP, but a shittier design and now with a Wifi mind of its own. The madness between us never ends, and it has come close to ending up in the street several times. The chapbook remains unpublished. I am stymied about the cover art, usually my favorite part of the home printing process. A so-called arts festival I’d planned to sell at turned out to be a scam, and live readings are still few and far between. I let go the rush, and settled into civilian life for a while. 

 

 I’ve been writing a monthly column for Albany Poets (albanypoets.com) in the last few months, and my last piece talked about the possibility of retiring from the Poetry Life. It’s still a tempting notion. I felt I had nothing left to say, and that few others had much to say to me. Even the silly tricks of erasure and freewriting produced nothing to jog a poem from my noggin. My routine, especially without regular readings in the flesh, provided little stimulation for the arts. I gained back the 20 pounds I’d managed to carve from my frame as quickly as it had come off. A monthly group of poet friends continue to Zoom, and I’ve always managed to scrape up something to share, but I never felt the need to produce much more. 

 

 I had no regrets. I’m happy with what I’ve written so far. If I was to pass away tomorrow, there would be files and clippings to keep my loved ones occupied until grief exhausted itself. But one occurrence did inspire me again, an odd one. I am in the habit of googling exes, as so many of us are. I determined that one of mine had passed in March, of what I could not tell. It was the most bare bones obituary I’d ever seen, and sad for someone who’d been so interested in so much around him, and himself. As my Beloved pointed out, there was no one left to write his story. I wasn’t grief-stricken myself. Too much time had passed, and it had been a good break for me. But the idea of no obituary must have finally touched on a poetry nerve. I wrote a poem, one that I’m pretty happy with. I’ll run it by the Zoom group next week to see if it can stand on its own, without a knowledge of intimate history behind it. And maybe it will see the light of day sometime.  

 

 

National Poetry Month- Not Just For Poets!

Some of you non-poets out there (and if you’re a non-poet and reading this blog on a regular basis, you have my undying gratitude) might have the impression that National Poetry Month ranks right up there with “National Salami Sandwich Day,” or “Grandparents Day.” It may at first glance give the impression of being the Hallmarkiest of Hallmark Holidays, spread out over thirty of them. However, unlike those other gift grabs, National Poetry Month requires no sending of cards or expensive gifts (unless you’re so inclined… PM me for my address)!

National Poetry Month was started by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, but the need had existed for years. Remember all those little quaint schoolhouses you see in the movies where pupils painfully stumbled through poems they’d been forced to memorize? Well, those days are long gone. Even when I was in grade school, for the better part of the 1970s, poetry got short shrift in lesson plans. If it hadn’t been for my mother reading to us from a wonderful collection called The Big Golden Book of Poetry (long out of print, but much sought after), I may not have been exposed to much verse at all. And without trying, I committed long passages to memory about Little Orphant Annie and the Owl & the Pussycat that ring around my brain to this day.

Bullwinkle the Moose was a poetry supporter early on, too. His short segments on “Bullwinkle’s Corner,” introduced several new generations to the likes of Poe and Wordsworth. Without changing a word of the poems, he and Jay Ward created amusing visual interpretations that illuminated the work in a new way, as poetry should be enjoyed uniquely by each new reader or listener.

It’s probably still the case that outside of literary circles, not much is heard about National Poetry Month. Around my house, my Roommate is pretty sick of it already. I’ve got two short gigs booked already, including “Readings Against the End of the World,” sponsored by Albany Poets on April 21^st. I’ve signed up for 11:00am, and there’s still space on the open mic list if you’d like to join me. As Dan Wilcox reminds us, “In Albany, every day is Poetry Month!” Not every city is so lucky to have a wizard like Dan to make that true.

Here in New York’s Hudson Valley, live poetry is on the upswing once again, despite the apparent demise recently of two longtime readings. Check your local listings, or drop me a line. Better yet, I’m always up for a drink or dinner in April, if you’re craving a lengthy discussion on the merits of literature in the 21^st century. And, I’m always up for a free meal in April.