Doctors Say, by Drew Myron
Oh, these heavy days.
Daily death counts. Isolation. Vigilance against every cough, sneeze, touch. And today, John Prine died.
The gloom hangs. I don’t need to tell you, of course. We’re all in this. Together, apart, staying home, hanging on.
And yet, I can’t stop telling. It’s both bliss and grief, this rush of words. Balm and barricade. And I’m not alone (well, I am, but y’know, not lonely). Writers are rising up and writing through.
Here a few of my latest favorites:
• Sarah Sloat has built a ship of solitude.
• Instagram, the sorta less evil social media site, offers a trove of pretty pictures and unobtainable aspirations and it’s a great forum for poets.
• Artist Jason Kartez is on Instagram, sharing a compelling account of working at a Los Angeles homeless shelter during the pandemic. The bite-size from-the-field missives are made more powerful with his simple and stark handwritten descriptions.
• Kelli Agodon and Melissa Studdard are collaborating on pandemic poems that you can find on Instagram at #dailywave.
• Rob Walker produces The Art of Noticing, an excellent weekly newsletter — free — packed with suggestions and inspiration “for building your attention muscles.” And, really, isn’t noticing the top requirement for our job as writers? I mean, other than curiosity and coffee? Sign up here.
• And lastly, to celebrate National Poetry Month, I’ll leave you with this gem:
Bliss and Grief
No one
is here
right now.