Poetry is always valued in times of crisis
Below you’ll find the latest pandemic poems and some historical greats, as well as some more contemporary classics nominated by the Poetry and Covid Team.
‘In the beginning the sky weighed down on the earth in a thick, black fog which trapped the prostrating heat in a blanket of clouds; and throughout the time that it took four moons to wax and to wane, the south winds blew with their sweltering currents of toxic air.’
Ovid, Metamorphoses
A Dream of Immunity
By Tejas Yadav
Spring is ripening the dark moss
Like hibernating moles
Now from locked-down holes
Some emerge into more chaos.
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Two Poems
By Charles Rammelkamp Pandemic “They called it the ‘Black Death,’because of the color of the gangrenous flesh,”Mister Philby lectured, my mom’s colleagueat the school, here to drop off some papers,though they were all working from home now. “Bruised-looking, purplish, like an aubergine.The bacteria came from fleas,entered the bloodstream,clotted on the extremities – nose, hands, feet;theContinue reading “Two Poems”
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‘What can Come’
By Alice Leventhal
“I live in the present.
But I exist in dread.”
Abigail Thomas wrote,
in her memoir,
What Comes Next.
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One day this will be Over
By Joe Bannon
Looking out the window on a grey wet afternoon, on a leave day without merit wished the end was coming soon.
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Mouseclick
By Janet Howcroft
ONE rolls a dice
ANOTHER sets a counter
moving clockwise round the board
while ads flash and jump like migraine
on the edges of your vision
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Death Before Covid
By Lucy Lloyd
Holding your hand, I feel,
I think I feel,
Your fingers move.
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Lockdown Slam
By Jonathan Dovey
In like a lion and out like a lamb,
This year’s March end is a lockdown slam.
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Three Poems
By Irene Cunningham
I fancy strolling
up long rows of lilac, or
cooling my ankles
in a lush bluebell wood…smell
the earth’s clever art.
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Poems on Covid
By Rabiya Haseeb
It’s raining outside
Drop by drop falling on leaves
Taking away with it sorrows and grieves
Making everything fresh and happy
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Three Poems
By Samantha Terrell
We have arrived
At precisely the place we have been heading—
On the ever-upward escalator
Of decades long stagnation
Meant only to thwart the progress of our nation
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Closer and Closer
By Ann Lipsitt
We are getting closer and closer
to being
closer and closer.
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Three Poems
By J. Khan
Think not to question the imminent jab,
nor tales of Middle Kingdom caves and bats:
Nope, no viral hacks at the Wuhan Lab.
Science has spoken. Facts is facts.
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Lockdown Latte
By James Lloyd
It’s been a year of lockdown
Been living in my dressing gown
Is it Friday? Is it Thursday?
Who’s to know – let’s call it Blursday
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Pandemic Decorum
By M. A. Dubbs
Mom says there’s nothing tackier
than wearing masks to a wedding.
I disagree.
Watching the buffering circle
spin on Gigi’s oak casket
like a long porno video
wasn’t the elegance
Papa originally planned.
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Bombardment: Confusion
By Jacky Pearson
Bombardment: Confusion
Stumbling on cold jagged path
Eyes can’t close to danger
Ears throb hot red from sharp noise
Elation and anxiety hold hands travelling to bright white ice light
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Alone Together
By Victoria Helen Loftus
It’s not that I won’t admit I’m wrong –
It’s just that –
And another thing –
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Deathly Chills
By Bruce Jackson
Isolated, as lonely as a cloud
That floats alone o’er towns and hills
Where once I saw an unruly crowd,
A host of desperate fools;
In the supermarket, filling trolleys,
Fighting o’er loo rolls, bread and lollies.
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Covid Nurse
By Carl Barber
Where would I be with out you
your nightingales cry
softening my own
upon a bitter livid darkening day.
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Three Poems
By Betsy Nelson
What had he forgotten
when he rose from his bed in the late darkness,
wandered to the kitchen where I read a book,
sipped a cup of tea,
recovered from a hard day’s work?
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Growing Wild
By Clare Manley and Emma Claire Sweeney
Bins of tissues,
every cough, sneeze and tear.
Empty packets,
chocolate buttons, lemon drizzle, custard creams.
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Quarantine
By Steve Grogan
My window gives me a view
Yet keeps everyone isolated
So I can only guess what’s new
And what people are thinking
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This is Us
By Cathy Ibberson
We’ve managed as a family through the dark winter nights
Using cinnamon scented candles and star fairy lights
At times someone’s temper has reached dizzy heights
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The Month that Turned into a Year
By Katherine Laufman
“Unprecedented
times”
said the Head
of School cautiously.
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My New Year Ditty
By Denise Simblet
2020- it was one of those years
Dotted with good times, surrounded by tears
Lots of hometime to keep us all well
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I’m a City Girl, I Don’t Like Nature
By Liane McKay
What is it that
constantly
draws me down to this flat, boring, empty field?
I’m a city girl! I don’t like nature!
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Thelma and Louise in an Age of Covid
By Julie Allyn Johnson
fishing tackle sanitized
mask/skirt coordinated ensembles
Thunderbird center console
stocked with Purell
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Could Any Have?
By Bosola Joseph
Could any have imagined the impact,
One lone minuscule invader would bring.
In control, with no authorised contract.
Fearlessly impartial, about a thing.
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Riccarton Campus 24th 25th 26th… March 2020
By Rosie Russell
The frozen view – no instamatic shot –
the empty banks of seats – the theatre lectureless
The lectures theatreless on distant screens
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Mum in a Pandemic
By Tora Chessum
Sounding out phonics
Keep your focus on the screen
Don’t get distracted
by Dad trying to clean
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COVID-ODE 2020
By Nesta Cook
What a year 2020 was for the world
From March the news of the pandemic unfurled
A sinister link to the phrase ‘gone viral’
When the COVID cases began to spiral
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The Neighbor
By Bobbi Sinha-Moray
When night erased the day and
a fog smothered every echo of
laughter I saw our neighbor again
after so long, he now delusional
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Transmission
By Tim Newson
You, me, him ,her,
Contact that was just a blur,
A breath, a laugh, a sigh,
A simple embrace is enough to die
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Three Poems
By Diane Sahms
My body nothing more than a space suit,
immortal spirit has been dropped into.
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Three Poems
By Sven Kretzschmar
cotton-texture country fields
and open-throated birdsong against corona-ted
silence of a downtown main street.
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Three Poems
By Ben Hartridge
The doctor comes running down
The rain wearing a long coat
And a mask. And I mask up too.
And we call the doorbell and
Hope that you will let us in.
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The Fluffed up Plan
By Maggie Zolobajluk
Nowhere to be seen, was the man at the top.
His head just off the political chopping block
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A Nurse’s Plea
By Yvonne Ugarte
Hold on tightly to my hand, Bill
I will not let go
Your family cannot be with you
As we must isolate you in this room
But I am here
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The Pandemic of ‘Traditional’ Values
By Nemina Dickinson
Headlines.
Vaccine by Christmas.
It will all be over by Christmas.
School was hard enough.
The screen speaks.
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It Always Rains Inside
By Jasmine Clarke
Staring through the window pain
the howling rage of relentless rain
makes me wonder
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The Silent Bluebird
By Sofi Bajor
He had to spend all of his time cooped up inside.
Like Bukowski’s bluebird in his very own cage.
Tormented by his crowded mind.
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Zooming in on Haircuts
By Trish Kerrison
Tight-curls loosen, lose control,
flatten out,
succumb to frizz,
hyper-straight struggle to maintain rigidity
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Downfall From High Ground
By Ceinwen Haydon
She’s certain what is wrong
and what is right: especially now,
in these Covid times. She refines her art:
hard stares, raised eyebrows, tsk tsk sounds –
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Seasons of Lockdown
By Rosalind Leveridge
It began with daffodils
And ended with fog, this confinement
And we had just returned from Nice.
‘Nice in Nice’, my father used to say.
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Three Poems
By Bobbie Prime
Shepherds without a correct UK licence
will be left seated on the ground.
Any non-national sheep, reindeer or donkeys
found without appropriate entry papers
will be impounded at Dover.
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A Worthing Winter
By Anita Moyes
Golden leaves fallen and swept away,
A weakening sun frames a shortening day,
Casting long shadows across the freezing sand.
Red tinges reflected in a Winter wonderland.
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My Solitary Walnut Tree
By Elisabeth Myers
You are incredible.
Anchored in abundance, my strong and splendid sentinel.
For so many years, you have stood alone.
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Uncertain Degrees
By Michael Leach
How sacred are your oaths? How ulterior are your motives? How democratic is your process? How independent is your inquiry? How pertinent are your questions? How honourable are your intentions? How shady is your past? How empty is your promise?
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Hope on the Horizon
By Claire Rowan
i’m going for a walk mum
i don’t know how long i’ll be
i’m going to the horizon
there’s some hope there just for me
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On Being Oppressed by Coronavirus
By Erin Miller
Trapped in a land infected by plague,
NY forces its residents to quarantine.
keep the mask in place, and don’t
increase the spread of the pathogen.
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Anchorites
By David Betteridge
Here I stand,
or, more often, sit or lie
or, within a narrow compass,
pace around.
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Three Poems
By Caroline Cripps
Warned, we bought a sack of potatoes,
lots of lentils, haircuts, completed time sheets.
It was Lent, with fasting, prayer,
online reflection on the plagues of Egypt,
Easter sunrise and finally roast lamb.
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Crafted not Predicted
By Sue Hunter
If pity drips like soft candlewax onto a fragile heart, and deep sighs airbrush
in tones of grey all wild imaginings
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New Years Poem 2021
By Charles Betts
Another year’s over and what did we do?
Tried to stay away from that old covid flu.
When the year started we had already made plans,
To travel somewhere to far distant lands.
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Footy Has Returned!
By Alun Robert
to the elite football restarted
though most life is in lockdown
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I used to go to Coffee Houses
By Anne Billinge
I used to go to coffee houses
I used to go out shopping
I used to love bookshop browses
I used to go bus hopping
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Anticipation Is
By Roger Haydon
a glitter patterned face mask,
a queue, a sore arm then
maybe a handshake with a stranger,
hugs again from friends,
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I Heard Something on the Wireless
By Michael Miller
I heard something on the wireless
As i went about my day,
Some new strain of virus
In some province far away.
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Covid Ghost
By Vin Pranitis
There is no seed
where the feeder was.
Nothing on the ground.
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One Sunday in January
By Deborah Fajerman
One Sunday in January, it snowed.
It was 2021. Our first snow in a few years.
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Five Poems
By Paulette Dubé
the light was just starting as we skied
(Raymond glided, I shuffled)
over Pyramid Lake you could pick any direction – blue sky over here
cloudy and windy over there
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The Mirror
By Virginia Griem
And here we are like damsels bound
in four grey walls and four grey towers
we only have a space of flowers
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There will be an After
By David Ford
One day soon, there will be an after
That rings again with children’s laughter.
We’ll say farewell to all the graphs and analysis
And start redoing the things we missed.
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I Attended a Funeral Today
By Naomi
A funeral with jeans on,
No mourning gown, not even in black.
In the same old chair, in the same old room.
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About Us
Poetry and Covid is an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, aiming to share poems and spark discussion around poetry and pandemics.
Dive into some poems and start commenting to join the conversation. Plus, submit a poem to poetryandcovid@gmail.com and be featured here and on social media.
The opinions expressed in works published on this website are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of the PoetryandCovid editors. We will not knowingly publish anything in breach of libel laws or which promotes anti-social views.