A Case for Poetry in the Time of Pandemic
You probably don’t need to be told that the world right now is undeniably loud. In midwinter, hints of some new pathogen were hushed by distant geography and American insularity. No epidemic, it seemed, could reach our shores. As the infection entered our consciousness in the following weeks, it invaded our vacation destinations, interrupted our plans, and acquired a snappier name. The influx of information compounded. Now, nearly a month into the pandemic, the onslaught of numbers, articles, opinion pieces, political back-and-forth, and all-caps rants from your distant relatives on social media have become an unbearable, relentless shriek. Widespread quarantines and shelter-in-place orders, empty streets and cancelled gatherings haven’t quieted us. Instead, we’ve somehow grown noisier than ever.
We, the people, are a loud bunch. Perhaps you, like me, spend your days endlessly scrolling through chaos, division, fear, and conflicting new “facts,” compulsively refreshing case numbers and the newest government declarations. Perhaps you, like me, need a refuge from the chaos. And so I would like to make the case for a timeless panacea: poetry.
Poetry, in the twenty-first century, has a bit of a PR problem. The familiar stereotypes abound: frilly nonsense spouted by men in frillier collars, composition-book-scribbles by sullen, misunderstood teenagers, or slam poetry recited by self-important hipsters at coffee shop open-mic night. These are trite and tired ideas, and unfortunately, the legacy they have produced regarding poetry’s “unimportance” and inaccessibility lives on. Social media has bloomed with creative acts inspired by the quarantine. Live-stream concerts and storytimes, photos of previously-unattempted baked goods, and TikTok choreography provide bright spots in the bleak landscape of our newsfeeds. Creativity, far from suffering under the pandemic, appears to be undergoing something of a growth spurt, induced by boredom or desperation for entertainment. Poetry, however, does not appear to have found its due place in this sudden resurgence of artistic appreciation (with the notable exception of Sir Patrick Stewart’s delightful daily sonnet readings on Instagram). Poetry simply hasn’t captured the attention of the public in the same way other forms of art have. But the online masses are missing out: this cultural moment is ripe for poetry.
Perhaps you, like me, have struggled to read much of anything despite a sudden overabundance of homebound free time. I have picked up several novels over the past two weeks of social isolation, from Camus’ all-too-relevant (and thus, all-too-bleak) The Plague to the comforting nostalgia of Harry Potter. All to no end--I cannot corral my attention long enough to make headway in any of them. My focus is scattered and even a half-hour of reading is a burden to my racing brain.
Enter the poem. On a most basic level, its compact, tight form is perfect for the struggling attention span. The nature of poetry is to employ the efficiency of language and style to pack a powerful punch often in only a few lines or stanzas. You don’t have to delve into epics or brain-benders to find meaning in poetry. For the overtaxed (and under-rewarded) brain, poetry provides depth of meaning, accessible in a succinct form that we can consume whole even when the quiet raging outside has our stomach in knots.
Of course, beyond the form itself, the act of reading poetry requires some practice. I would argue that the act of reading poetry is similar to a spiritual discipline. It’s both meditative and deliberate. In a time of chaos, with a virus hurling wave after wave of indiscriminate mayhem upon us, the balm of poetry is its intentionality: the care instilled in each word, space, and element of rhythm. The consideration given to its creation invites the same contemplation from the reader. This focus is all but sacred, and perhaps it is in fact sacred for some. Although disorder reigns outside, we can take solace in the reflective practice of poetic interpretation.
I challenge you to engage this practice with one poem today, and to take your time in doing so. Find meaning in the methodical parsing of language, or in the beauty of reading aloud, letting the sounds roll around on your tongue. With a novel, we often read quickly, dashing from one plot point to the next. But the form of a poem begs your attention. It asks that you sit with it, and reflect, just a moment longer. When have we ever had so many moments to spare?
It’s not just the intrapersonal value of poetry that I argue for here--there is a broader humanistic value to poetry germane to the pandemic at hand. As of the moment I am writing this sentence, there have been 1,210,956 cases of COVID-19 diagnosed globally. At this moment, 64,594 of those have died. There is no telling how those numbers will have climbed in the time it takes to read this. If your mind staggers under the immensity of these numbers, if the weight of despair settles across your shoulders and you cannot quite grasp the meaning, you are not alone. Psychologically speaking, mass suffering on this scale is difficult for us to comprehend; the end result of these abstract figures is the undervaluation of individual lives. As Yeats writes, “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” As thousands lose their lives daily, we not only suffer anxiety for ourselves or our loved ones, eventually we experience an existential exhaustion. Our empathy is stretched beyond capacity by abstraction. Compound that with the forced removal from our own meaningful communities we experience due to social distancing measures, and it’s possible for us to experience a dissociation from humanity. We, as a global community, are undergoing a crisis of isolation.
Yet in the midst of this isolation, poetry provides intimacy. It grounds us in the common human experience by focusing on one voice, one experience. Reading poetry is a compassionate act. It exhibits the humanity of the poet, and affirms the humanity within ourselves. We cannot put a face or a story on the 64,594 humans who have lost their lives, but we can recognize ourselves in the poetic voice. We can remind ourselves of the things we share with each of the 64,594 that we will never know, by virtue of our shared humanity, and why their loss matters. This is especially important across cultural lines: the U.S. may lead COVID-19 cases worldwide now, but a few weeks ago, when the worst here was yet to come, populations in China and Italy were being ravaged by the disease. As political rhetoric continues to be deployed against China, and Italy’s losses continue to climb, it is too easy to view these populations only in the abstract notions of their governments and healthcare systems. I encourage you instead to seek out the bonds of humanity that we share. Read a Chinese poet. Read an Italian poet. Read poets across the spectrum of cultures, time periods, life experiences, and see what you share with them. There has never been a better time to connect with others on a global scale than in this exact moment when all share a common fight.
By reading poetry, we participate in an act of creation. The poet creates the poem; but when we meet the poet’s meaning and connect with it to create our own, we too engage in creation. This is, to me, perhaps the most important reason to read poetry, especially now. To affirm and engage in creation is an act of defiance in a time of destruction. Here, in a season of loss, we are grieving as a species. We grieve the loss of life, not only for those who have died, but for ourselves, who have lost our lives as we once (not so long ago) knew them, and must give up control in the face of an uncertain future. To read poetry, to create meaning when there is plenty of reason to give in to nihilism, constitutes a rebellion. It is an affirmation of life in the face of oblivion.
After a difficult winter, I bookmarked the poem “Instructions on Not Giving Up,” by Ada Limón, both as a source of comfort and a challenge, a call to resilience, to accompany the beginning of spring. In it, Limón observes the seasonal greening of the trees as a symbolic declaration of adaptability in hardship, “a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us.” This image has taken on new meaning for me as the pandemic has sparked fear and disrupted our collective sense of security. Spring may have technically arrived, but the pandemic has become our new winter, driving us into dormancy, forcing us to take shelter. Eventually, like the trees in Limón’s poem, this season will pass and we will return once again to “the strange idea of continuous living.” In the meantime, poetry can provide what we so desperately need. Poetry can affirm life in the face of death, and humanity in isolation. Poetry can tell the story of us, and of our ability to, like Limón’s tree, stare adversity in the face and declare, “I’ll take it all.”
