Liz Steinglass here at her blog hosts today on our first Poetry Friday in May! It's May Day perhaps the beginning of some better times. Liz has begun her May by airing her first author video, sharing poems from her wonderful book, SoccerVerse! Thanks for hosting, Liz!
There was much to sadden us in April, but also much to celebrate with so many writing poetry in April. I hope you all have read at least a few of the poems written and shared. The Progressive Poem hosted by Margaret Simon is complete, well, almost. Someone needs to create a title and it needs a bit of punctuation finished, though Amy LV did some. You will love that final line added by Michelle Kogan shared here! Not only did she write the final line, she sang the entire poem accompanied by her banjo! Wow!
On the Poetry Friday before April 1st, I shared a poem about 'Scraps', my days changing because of this challenging time we now are living, finding it hard to settle down and the things, though nice, that were taking my time, though I moved often from piece to piece without a concentrated focus on any. My April did change that, my challenge to take those small wooden tree circles and create a poem and sketch from each. I did it and they helped me spend long and comforting hours writing and doing art. They certainly weren't all perfect, but they created a month-long capturing of strange April, what Shakespeare foretold and now I agree was "the cruelest month". I am glad I found such a challenge. You can read the list of my blog posts, including the kind of poems and the topic of each one up above.
And, this Pandemic time pushes me on. In my search for reading about other past Pandemics, I found the book that I'd read a few years ago about cholera: The Ghost Map, The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, by Steven Johnson. I'd forgotten it and now feel its connection profoundly.
In the time of the 1850s in London, the city had grown to enormous proportions, and the leaders were facing some of the biggest challenges ever faced when groups of people moved together. There were just too many people and too much waste to deal with. Some of you may know the background of this time in history, the time when most scientists thought it was the miasmatic air that caused cholera and other diseases. The experience of those contracting cholera was horrifying. but no more than what those with Covid19 flu are experiencing right now!
And I found this poem by Linda Pastan. It isn't easy to comment about people passing, but Linda Pastan does just that, about a time, perhaps in her own life, when saying goodbye was happening too often. And it feels like a connection from this past to our own now. I am heartbroken for those who have died during this time, and those who are struggling with many personal challenges. I'm trying to help where I can, hoping all who read this are staying healthy and helping if you can, also.
Departures by Linda Pastan
They seemed to all take off
at once: Aunt Grace
whose kidneys closed shop;
Cousin Rose who fed sugar
to diabetes;
