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Uhhh...it totally looks like one of these things. I used to love these :-(

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Uhhh...it totally looks like one of these things. I used to love these :-(

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Is my mask protective enough??? *bites nails*

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Is my mask protective enough??? *bites nails*

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Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests

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Quarantine feels *weird* after so many months. 

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Quarantine feels *weird* after so many months. 

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But at least these poems make me feel less alone

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But at least these poems make me feel less alone

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In the weeks since they had to leave MIT, the students in my Poetry Writing Workshop have done some of the finest work of the semester. Ed Barrett noticed the same thing. It turns out that stress, uncertainty, fear, confinement, isolation and discomfort still, after centuries of human suffering, lead writers to write. As one student noted, "Poetry has the ability to both fix that which is fleeting and collapse our familiar notions of what we thought was stable." Here is a brief sampling of poems from Pandemic Spring. Ed and I are deeply grateful to the students who agreed to share their work.

-Erica Funkhouser, Lecturer, Comparative Media Studies/Writing

"Containtment"

By Vanessa Wong (21W.771)

angered, she sits on her haunches
brushing her matted fur and
counting down the
days, minutes, seconds until she ventures outside.
everything is precocious and titillating and taunting.
freesias bloom and vacillate in the breeze,
growing more tempting by the
hour as the sun's rays move from east to west. she is
intimately familiar with the light and imagines the
journey she would take: the sun a chariot, herself
kept on a
loose leash - realistic freedom - with a
mother close in tow. after all, she can
navigate her surroundings blind.
oak, tile, bamboo and cement
parse her territory into neat geometries but paws on
quay are her deliverance. finally outside, she
roams the grassy latitudes and
socializes with the sagebrush and rabbits
that are wild in array. tabular symmetries would be
unusual in this landscape but the
void of such mechanical instruments is a
welcome change to her owners' fixation on
xeric indoor climates and pixelated
yearbooks.
zealous adventures she awaits.

"Alive"

By Maisha M. Prome (21W.762)

Rain drums, thrums on the rooftop
To a beat that overtakes the one that keeps me alive
And then slowly sings me to sleep at my desk
Tomorrow maybe, I'll finally get up from the desk
Still can't go outside but we can go to the rooftop
To look at the sky and remember that it's good to be alive
All those years when the city was alive
And yet we sat still and studied, glued to the desk
Only the rain knows reason as it rinses the rooftop

"things to do in quarantine"

By Olivia Phillips, Harvard (21W.771)

sleep in since you can't go out let your body decide what time the
day begins with a cup of tea settle into breakfast and spoon the
morning news down your throat while the kettle boils again
because you'll need more caffeine if you mean to survive all

of the nothing on your to do list hanging hostile on the wall

paint on your eyebrows so you recognize yourself in the glass but
not the mascara that you know you won't want to remove (though
you'll have plenty of time) when it's late and your eyes are closing
like every door and window in this necessary cell

pace the hallway lap the table tread the carpet cross the threshold
into insanity or (worse) apathy and turn to start again slowly tiptoe
towards the kitchen sinking feeling filling space in the stomach
you wish was as empty as this gray monotonous day full of
ambiguous unfulfilled hungers and unsatiated longings

scour room by room for hook or loom or else (to still shaking
hands) thread a needle and fill the fabric with enough stitches so
your mind stops unraveling in panic and tangling in paranoia

curse the dullness call home light the fuse let the countdown linger
hang up just before detonation run for cover savor the
dullness but only until realizing your haven too is home to a
grenade so run to find higher ground crawl deeper into the fissure of yourself

find the silver linings in the bullets piercing bone and marrow:
though your mind is a warzone the house has never been cleaner if
you get sick at least you'll have an excuse not to eat dinner saving
money on gas means you can afford your therapy copays you
never were the biggest fan of social interaction anyway

"Quarantine"

By Patricia D. Gao (21W.762)

What if I just want to be
In the same room as you?
Keeping up conversations
Is not my strong suit, I am better at
Breathing when I hear you breathe
Typing at my laptop while you're
Biting your pen and flipping pages
Or scrolling through your phone
Laughing occasionally
You'd ask to open my window
As it's gotten too hot
I'd stretch out on the carpet
If I needed a break
Silence on a video call means
It's time to hang up
But if you were here
We'd have the kind of silence
One would never want to leave.
My friendship with you
Is better side by side, not
face to face.

"Saccade"

By Merryn Daniel (21W.762)

The paper's edge is sharp beneath soft fingertips; my foot
shakes, toes hitting the trim though
This highlighter lid's click satisfies me for a second -
Desk; cursor twitch; hand finds another pen; legs cross;
Lips find coffee cup (oh it's empty) new tab; glance outside
I've been holding my breath - (exhale) open phone;
Close it is that an ant or just a piece of dirt?
next song; pop knuckles; cut fingernails.

"An Index for the Time Being"

By Jia Hui Lee (21W.771)

Afterword; Antecedent; Apocalyptic;
Before; Beginning; Black (Hole); Boomer; Brunch (I can't remember the Last one); Bygone;
Climate Change; Counterfactuals (If Bernie had won); Covid-19; Cyclical!;
Debut; Decay (Institutional); Dimension; Distance (see Social; Physical; Emotional);
Eclipse; Emergency; Emotional (Distancing); End of an; Era;
Feverish; Fleeting; Foreseeable?; Foreshadow of a; Forever (see Timeless);
Galactic; Gallivant (I miss it so); Gathering (no larger than 10); Generations; Geological;
Hole (see Black, Worm, Threshold); Horizontal (movement of Time); Horology; Hysteria;
Immediate; Incessant; Infectious; Intermission; Irruption (see Covid-19);
Jeffersonian; Julian; Jurassic (Period, not Park); Just in Time;
Karma (see Cyclical!); Keep (Time but it, too, Fleets);
Last (Time, as in Goodbye); Late; Late Capitalism; Left Behind; Lethargy;
Maritime; Meantime; Millennial; Minute (as in Small); Moon;
Nether; Never; None; Now (if not when?);
Occult (as in Event, not Practice); Often; Old (but Young at Heart);
Past (as in Tense); Physical; Post-; Postponed; Pre-; Prolong;
Quadrennial (see Postponed); Quaint; Quarantine (as in Forty Days); Queer (as in Resilient);
Racist; Rebirth; Relativity; Repeat (Twice); Resurrect (and Repeat); Rest; Retreat;
Science (Fiction); Second (as in Not First); Singularity; Social (Distance); Syn/Chronic;
Threshold; Time (Being, Passing, Moving); Timeless; Today; Tomorrow;
Ultimate (see Last, Zenith);
Vortex; Vigilante; Viral;
Warp (as in Let's Do the Time Warp Again!); Worm (see Hole); Wrinkle (in Time);
X (as in 10, see Gathering); Xenophobic (Times);
Year; Yearn for; Yesterday;
Z (as in Generation); Zenith; Zombified.

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Student poems during COVID-19: "Pandemic Spring" - MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing

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In the weeks since they had to leave MIT, the students in my Poetry Writing Workshop have done some of the finest work of the semester. Ed Barrett noticed the same thing. It turns out that stress, uncertainty, fear, confinement, isolation and discomfort still, after centuries of human suffering, lead writers to write.

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The news is always threatening me!
Oh wait, this is from 1918....

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A list of rules from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1918 to reduce the chances of contracting or spreading the devastating flu pandemic. Getty Images / Fototeca Storica Nazionale

Coronavirus infection rates continue to rise, with the number of new cases climbing in dozens of states and the U.S. reporting record numbers of cases on individual days. Hospitalization across the U.S. has dramatically jumped; some cities are seeing surges that threaten to overwhelm their health care systems.

Meanwhile, the demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd brought tens of thousands into the streets, congregating shoulder-to-shoulder. Many are the victims of tear gassing by police, potentially increasing the risk of transmission and infection. The latest models indicate COVID-19's U.S. death toll could reach 170,000 by October. A second wave this fall - or the continuation of an unabated first wave - could make that number even higher.

But these are not unprecedented times.

As a historian of medicine at the University of Michigan, I am a student of the 1918 influenza pandemic. It remains the deadliest public health event in recorded history. There are lessons to be learned from what happened a century ago. True, there are differences between then and now. Then we were a nation at war, with an economy led by manufacturing and a male-dominated workforce. We had far less medical and scientific knowledge. And it was an entirely different virus. But striking similarities exist between how we reacted to the pandemic in 1918, and how we're responding now.

Getty Images / Universal History Archive

Lessons from the last century

The city of Denver, Colorado, is perhaps the most relevant case study. As the epidemic skyrocketed, officials ordered the immediate closure of schools, churches, and places of public amusement. Indoor public gatherings were banned. Such action, it was argued, would save lives and money.

The business community agreed. One theater owner put it this way: "I shall sacrifice gladly all that I have and hope to have, if by so doing I can be the means of saving one life."

That noble sense of civic duty quickly faded as townspeople took to congregating outdoors. They met in the busy downtown shopping district and at outdoor church services and lodge meetings. Business owners and those thrown out of work by the closure orders decried these gatherings; they were bearing the brunt of the closures, they said, while the public shirked its duty. Denver's health officer, calling out the "criminal neglect" of those at the open-air assemblies, added outdoor gatherings to the prohibitions.

[ Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]

Within just two weeks of the closures, residents grew restless. As records of new cases leveled off, many demanded an end to both the closure order and gathering ban. Giving in to the pressure, the mayor and health officer announced the measures would be lifted on Nov. 11, 1918. That day - in a horrible twist of fate - turned out to be Armistice Day. Thousands thronged the streets, hotels, theaters, and auditoriums of Denver to celebrate both the end of World War I and the pandemic. But only one of them was truly over.

Health authorities realized a new surge of influenza deaths were likely but acknowledged there was little they could do. "There is no use trying to lay down any rules regarding the peace celebration," said one official, "as the lid is off entirely."

Getty Images / Photo Quest

The next wave hits

The surge came hard and fast. Within a week, physicians reported hundreds of new cases and dozens of deaths per day. Officials responded with another set of closure orders and gathering bans. Theaters, bowling alleys, pool halls, and other places of public amusement were shut down. Affected business owners, complaining they were singled-out, formed an "amusement council," and demanded the city close all places of congregation or issue a mask order. City officials acceded. They put a mask order in place.

Enforcement was an issue. Residents routinely refused to wear masks even when threatened with arrest and hefty fines. The mayor soon realized the futility of the order. "Why, it would take half the population to make the other half wear masks," he said. "You can't arrest all the people, can you?" Officials then backed off again: they would recommend mask use, not require it.

Except for streetcar conductors. They still had to wear them, said the city. Bristled at being singled out, the conductors threatened to strike. A walkout was averted when city officials again watered down the order. Conductors only had to wear them during rush hour commutes. The new provisions were all but useless, and a few days later the mask rule was abolished.

Denver's epidemic continued for several months. It was unchecked by any public health orders, save for isolation and quarantine for those with the illness. The result: a second spike of deaths higher than the first, and one of the nation's largest per capita death tolls.

History could repeat itself

Surely at least some of this sounds familiar. If Denver's story tells us anything, it is that we must do better than in 1918. All of us must continue to combat COVID-19 with face masks and social distancing in public. Recent studies show face masks, along with hand sanitation and social distancing by a majority of the population, can quickly bring this pandemic under control.

Those levels of compliance, however, might become increasingly difficult. In 2020, we are bristling much the same way they did in 1918. A century ago, masks were widely despised; many today feel the same way. Yet if we don't take these measures seriously, we will likely face a resurgence of the virus.

If the past offers us any perspective into the future, it is this: returning to the sweeping closures and stay-at-home orders that we're emerging from may be difficult. It proved all but impossible to do so a century ago. It very well may prove impossible today.

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Lessons from the 1918 pandemic: A U.S. city's past may hold clues

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Coronavirus infection rates continue to rise, with the number of new cases climbing in dozens of states and the U.S. reporting record numbers of cases on individual days. Hospitalization across the U.S. has dramatically jumped; some cities are seeing surges that threaten to overwhelm their health care systems. Meanwhile, the demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd brought tens of thousands into the streets, congregating shoulder-to-shoulder.

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Y'all think covid actually looks like this under a microscope?

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Y'all think covid actually looks like this under a microscope?