Rhyming in the Face of the Apocalypse: How Poetry Has Kept Me Sane During the COVID-19 Pandemic

On March 16, 2020, my state shut down in response to COVID-19. I am a teacher, and schools were closed indefinitely. It became clear to me that this was going to be a thing. A serious thing. And I decided that, to keep my own sanity, to tether myself to the present and fight the fear of the future that was exploding inside me, I would write a poem every morning until it was over. I'm still writing. At the same time, I decided to read poetry every morning. These two acts became the pillars of an evolving morning routine that has been the cornerstone of my sanity and survival over the course of this intense and exhausting year. That decision to write a poem every day has resulted in a historical, artistic and creative artifact comprised of nearly 400 poems.

When I first began this process, I thought I might have 100 poems. By the time I reached poem 365, I had become compulsive and could no longer stop. The routine has become a kind of magical ritual for me, as if the act of engaging with poetry, as reader and as writer, is itself keeping some sort of dark forces - the virus, depression, madness - at bay. 

At first, I saw the poem-a-day project purely, and explicitly, for myself alone, with no intention of becoming a more public creation. But then, a moment happened where I became aware of the power that reading the works of other poets had, the way their work was comforting me, grounding me, saving me from the storm. And then I read one of my own pieces and felt the urge to share it, in its imperfect, unvarnished, unfinished form. I made a video of the written draft and myself reading it, and I posted it on Facebook, my own small act of resistance against the destructive spirit that was increasingly inhabiting that space. People responded, and soon, my act of daily poetry became something I sporadically shared. Some days, I shared the work of other poets that had spoken to me. On other days, it was my own work, always with the rough vision of the first draft scribbled in my writer’s notebook. There was something about the embrace of unfinished imperfection that seemed right for a moment in which uncertainty reigned and “good enough” became a mantra. It was an ongoing declaration of the need for grace - for myself, for all of us, during an impossible time that was real. By sharing my poetic journey, I discovered that I was not alone in finding comfort, hope, courage, and connection through poetry during this pandemic and all the other insanity around the world that came along with it.

I also discovered the grounding power of form as a kind of lifesaver. When I sat down each morning to take my spirit’s temperature and listen for the words that would give it voice, some days that voice was harder to hear than others. On those days, form became my creative midwife. Acrostics allowed me to explore certain words that had suddenly become part of our communal song - words like shelter in place, quarantine, coronovirus, sanitizer, social distancing, flattening the curve. Sometimes, a theme was present to me in a single word, like the word “uncertainty.” Focusing on a single word created boundaries and scaffolding for me that left space for the poetry to find its way out into the open. 

Soon, rhythmic forms also became part of my scaffolding - sonnets and haiku, for instance. Sometimes I set myself a challenge - repeat the ending of a line, spread a phrase across the start of each line, and so on. Numbers seemed so present in conversation about the virus, so it seemed only right that numbers became part of my poetic journey. I started playing with the notion of quarantine, a word that references 40 days, which was how long ships kept their cargo on board during the Black Death. I created a form inspired by and named for this, consisting of 10 lines of 4 syllables each. I played with variations on this form, other configurations of 40 syllables, but I always came back to that initial configuration. I think I liked the sparseness and simplicity of it - like a haiku, but with a bit more elbow room to wander through a notion or image.

The poets I read during this journey were important voices in the conversation:

Mary Oliver, Rainier Maria Rilke at first, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, to name just a few, made up the soil in which my own poems were growing.

This task I set for myself has functioned as a guidepost and grounding influence, a reminder of what matters, a place to reflect on the emotions and events that have unfolded around us, a space to explore my own reactions to this strange point in history. There were days when all I could manage was a haiku, and there were days when I worked and reworked a piece. My work schedule, teaching online, often dictated how much time I had in the morning.

I did some revision as I wrote, but when I reached the one-year milestone, I began revising in earnest. In order to keep the full shape of the journey, I decided not to get rid of any pieces, even those whose first draft seemed weaker than the rest. Instead, I sought to hone the craft of each poem while maintaining the psychological and emotional truth of the moment in which each piece was born. This approach to revision has proven to be a fascinating challenge. The self who is revising, one year into the pandemic experience, is not the same self responsible for the initial act of creation. And yet, the revising self has an obligation, a sacred duty to the initial creating self, to honor the moment of spirit and outside reality that gave birth to each piece, to honor the intent and emotion and perspective of each piece. I have become my own translator in a way, engaged in a dialogue between present and past selves.

Perhaps one day this artifact, with its alchemy of personal and global experiences, will become a book. Certainly, I am treating it as a creative project with a public future. For now, what that means is revising, conversing with my poet mind as she makes the journey, attending to the changes and shifts that time has wrought, and continuing to engage with the muse and the pandemic. Survival through poetry. Rhyming in the face of the apocalypse.

An Update from the Writing Desert

It's been almost a year since my last post. I choose to post again more for myself than the world, as my blogs feel more and more like messages in a bottle in the vast ocean of cyberspace. I post today's update as a way to check in with my creative self, see how she's doing and what she's up to and why she hasn't ventured forth much lately.

During this past year, I participated in two storytelling performances, one with Portland Story Theatre and the other with Solospeak. Both were powerful experiences in exploring true stories from my own life, stories that swerve close to the bone. They were great lessons in crafting structure, choosing details, and thinking about overarching themes that expanded my creative vista into the more vulnerable realm of personal narrative.

The other big creative event for me last year was a performance of my own poems at my 30th College Reunion at the invitation of a classmate. Being so public with the raw emotions embedded in some of my poetry was an incredible experience - to speak with that voice in that place witnessed by those people. Afterwards, I told myself I wanted to explore other chances to share and perform my poetry. This December, I will do just that, as part of a culminating reading for a poetry class with the fabulous Claudia Savage.

Other than that, I've written some poems and posted them on my other blog, Pamplemousse, created a one-hour edit of Macbeth for Willamette Radio Workshop's Halloween show, read, tended to my health with yoga and meditation and wandered around in cyberspace. I find myself putting my energy into the needs of my family, nurturing relationships, and the demanding vocation of teaching. I write every day in my journal, but I seem to have given up any pretense of seeking publication, even self-publishing beyond my blogs. I alternate between accepting that and being horribly disappointed in myself. I dance between neglecting and abandoning my identity as writer.

Perhaps this shift is a function of that word "identity" and its collision with mortality and a changing  concept of self. The whole notion of "I" or identity seems, as I age, less important than the notion of the larger human organism, the world and the great arc of time, of which I am only one infinitesimal part. Making my peace with that truth seems to occupy more of my energy, and a desire to have public recognition for writing seems to dwindle.

Or perhaps it is laziness, or an honest self-assessment of my own abilities and chances, or just simple  despair. However, here I sit, typing this entry, reminding myself once again that the written word is my chosen form of self-expression, for good or for ill, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part.

Taking the Reins to Redefine "Finished"

Not long ago, my writing partner and I wrestled with the question "What stops us from finishing?" We followed the thread of this question and it led us to another question - "What does finished mean to us?"

Sadly, at this point in my writing journey, finished, for anything but poetry, too often means homeless, stillborn, rejected and unwanted. I believe that constellation of adjectives is sufficient to stop me from finishing.

What makes poetry different? I post it on my blog, maybe share the link, and consider it done. It is similar to tossing a message in the bottle out to the universe, but a bit more like the digital equivalent of one of those poetry boxes I see sometimes in my neighborhood. If only a handful of people see it besides me, so be it. At least I am not waiting for it to come into being. It has been born. It is public. It exists beyond the realm of a stray dog begging for scraps at the exclusive tables of public consumption on a grand scale. I'm not sure I can bear any longer to subject myself or my words to that other fate, that begging for scraps fate, and the massive infusion of self-doubt, jealousy, petty emotions and misery connected with it. I have been brave and ventured into that world, and, quite frankly, it sucks. I hate it. And it has given me precious little of value in return. Nor, I think, has it brought much to the world, including my words, in the end.

This holiday season, inspired by poet and teacher Claudia F. Savage, I created hand-bound mini-chapbooks of poetry as gifts for three special people in my life. Each book was a poem, or collection of poems, written for the recipients. The process of writing and the process of lovingly creating the binding was so profoundly energizing and meaningful. My words were given homes that mattered. My words were born from a place of love. There was not a single thought of fame or fortune or self-doubt involved. A gift of love, made with love, given with love.

Now I find myself with two collections of poetry that I want to turn into chapbooks, that were born from strong and personal sources, but that are something other than personal gifts meant for one recipient. One is called DEAR ONES: MESSAGES FROM A TEACHER'S HEART, and is inspired by and dedicated to my students, past, present and future. The other, tentatively titled EPIC is a series of poems exploring the height of the AIDS epidemic and how it impacted my life. I have begun to contemplate how to give birth to these two collections.

I can't bear the thought of putting them out there for the wolves to feed upon or turn up their noses, left to shiver in the cold and die of neglect. I realize that money and recognition aren't what I want for these two collections. I want them to exist, to find homes, if only a handful, and speak to some other heart somewhere.

So, a plan is beginning to form in my brain. A plan to hand-bind a small number of each collection and put them out at local, welcoming places - the coffee shop I frequent down the street, and perhaps some of the "free libraries" around my neighborhood. A plan to offer them for free, with a note on the back page that says, if these poems spoke to you, please make a donation to charity, and then includes either a list of charities or a link to a list, with maybe a place to email me a note if the reader is so inclined. I like the way this idea also feels like a small act of resistance in the face of our current political climate.

Perhaps this will be my one and only New Year's Resolution. To give my written work existence, without waiting for scraps from the great tables.

The Poet's I, The Poet's Eye

Lately, as I think I've mentioned, I've been playing with poetry. "Playing" is the best word for it. There's something quite freeing about it, as if I'm more fully tapped into that mysterious voice out in the ether that seems to inhabit the writer's brain at the best moments. It feels like a more open, more direct conduit to the universal subconscious well of imagination.

Which brings me to the poet's "I" and the poet's eye. The eye through which I look at my words and my world when I have staked my flag in the territory of the poet is an eye that looks for strange juxtapositions, words and images that don't normally cohabitate, that take your brain in the direction of the other, of a dimension that has no words but finds its way through the sounds and shape and jostle of words. For me, it's not always the eye of personal experience. It's another entity, another brain, one that lives in another dimension and travels between worlds with an unself-conscious ease.

As a result, the poet's "I" is also different. Some poems come forth in the voice of "I." That doesn't mean it is my voice - the voice of my personal experience of emotions. I try to banish the fear of how readers who know me might interpret these poems. I am not the one speaking through the "I" of my poetry. Somebody else is making their feelings and experience known, or reaching out to another "I" that is a reader.

When I write fictional prose in first person, I am very conscious of my choice of point of view. I choose it inentionally, and my reader knows it is fiction. If they choose to confuse the narrative "I" of my protagonist with the "I" of me, the author, that's on them, but at least we all know there is, at minimum, a pretense of division between the two.

Writing poetry, I don't feel as if I can count on that assumed caveat. People see poetry as more personal and immediate. Will they assume the poet's "I" is also the author's eye? That I am speaking directly through my poems? I think I am, as a reader, guilty of that assumption. Yet, as a writer of poetry, I see it is false. Some poems simply speak, and they speak in first person, and yet they speak a story I know I haven't lived, but I still feel completely certain of the words.

Poetry Is Everywhere

This has been a week of mourning for the printed word, as my local paper, The Oregonian, takes the ax to its staff, its home delivery, and its print content.  However, as I walked home from the coffee shop, where I had been sitting reading a printed book by the small, independent local Forest Avenue Press, I saw a poem posted in someone's yard.  I stopped and read it and it nearly brought tears to my eyes.  For the rest of my walk, everything around me wanted to be a poem, too.  Then, at home, there was a poem in my email from my friend, William S. Gregory.  And, perusing the blogosphere, another poem called to me from Christi Krug's site A Fire By Night.  With poetry all around me, perhaps the portentous omens I have seen in the news of dying bees and dying customs are not so very dire after all.  Thank you, poets, one and all.

Word Play

Word play isn't just for kids, but they're definitely the best at it.  For the past 2 weeks, poet Eric Hull of the Vox spoken-word chorus has been doing a residency in my classroom.  Bringing a poet into the classroom has unlocked the sheer joy of playing with words in some beautiful ways.  Kids who have been notoriously reluctant writers all year are suddenly inspired.  The energy in the room is palpable.  They're beaming with their creations and rushing up eagerly to show me.  What's perhaps most surprising is how little it took, really.  Some time spent on rhythm and meter, a lesson on alliteration, one on similes and one on rhyming couplets.  

With all the focus we have on state testing and improving the basics of writing (spelling, capitals, periods 'til we're all blue in the face), I guess I've lost sight of the fun of words.  Poetry always gets the shaft in the curriculum for the sake of expository writing and longer narratives that will get at the kind of sustained writing expected by the state standards and the tests.  I'm saddened and mad at myself that I've let that thinking rule me.  What a breath of fresh air to remember how fun it can be to play with words!

I think this is a lesson for my writer self, too.  When I'm bogged in the slog of submissions and the killjoy of queries, maybe it's time for an internal rhyme or a little alliterative literature.  Even us serious writers need to remember to play with words.  Who knows what fresh visions the muse might conjure when caught up in the joy of word play?

A few samples from my kids:
"Murky muddy mighty mushy mountains."
"Oregon tastes like peanut butter."
"Oregon looks like a giant blob with two right angles."
"Oregon has a lot of beaches, but Ms. McGean still teaches."
"Oregon is as salty as the beach."
"I saw a raccoon that ruined my cocoon."

And the one that caused a giant grin to burst across one too-often sad boy:
"When there is a brain drain,
Ms. McGean goes insane."

That one made me laugh out loud.

Promise to self:  remember to play and have fun with words and with learning, no matter what "accountability measures" might be breathing down your neck.