Over here in Merrie Olde England, it is National Poetry Day. Why we need a single National Poetry Day has always been unclear to me because from my perspective there should be three hundred and sixty five national poetry days each year. Be glad for the poetry has no ending.
I guess it's about raising the profile of poetry - putting it in the spotlight here at the beginning of October which I have always found to be one of the more fertile months for poetic expression. Leaves fall in October - at least here in the northern hemisphere they do. Days shorten. Birds fly away. Sometimes the light outside is pure gold. These things are inspirational for poets and would-be poets alike.
I will write a poem today. I have already chosen its title: "In The Time of Corona". That is a deliberate echo of "Love in The Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez which I read last year..
The task may change but at the moment I want to make a poem that is set at some future time, as if looking back upon this pandemic to enlighten our descendants. We ourselves are largely ignorant about living through scarlet fever and typhoid epidemics and what do we really know of cholera? But this strange COVID thing, we have co-existed with it for months now and there are more months to come. It is part of our experience of life.
It is invisible but it is amongst us. We have felt the apprehension, the confusion, the melancholy that it has brought with it. Sweeping around the globe. Stalking the landscape like a mythical beast..
Yes. I shall write a poem for National Poetry Day but I haven't written it yet. The teabag is simply swirling in the water. Soon I will be out walking again just because it is a lovely morning. Hopefully, the steps I plod will aid creation. Watch this space.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/3l2CGQ1
