University Professors Press is proud to announce the release of A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic edited by Elayne Clift. This book is a powerful collection of poems about the Covid-19 pandemic. We will be hosting a book release celebration with a poetry reading on Facebook Live on Friday, June 30 at 5:00 PM PST/6:00 PM MST/ 7:00 PM CST/8:00 PM EST. For more information, click here. Like the University Professors Press Facebook page to receive a notification when the event starts. Use coupon code “21cp_nr2021” at the University Professors Press website to receive a 10% discount on A 21st Century Plague. The coupon is also good for the Poetry, Healing, and Growth Book Bundle (12 books), including A 21st Century Plague.
About A 21st Century Pandemic
It is more than a year since Covid-19 invaded our countries and our bodies, causing us to long for the touch of loved ones, to fight anxiety and despair, and to adjust to the stunning effects of prolonged isolation. We watched as the numbers of deaths mounted and agreed that it was the worst health crisis we’d experienced in a hundred years. We saw pictures of those we’d lost, and resisted having them treated as mere statistics. What we longed for were stories about people lost to the insidious virus, and those left behind. We wanted stories of survival, coping, finding our way to the future. We wanted stories that made us laugh, weep, empathize, share sadness, become better people ourselves.
That’s because storytelling, whether sung, danced, painted, acted, or written in prose and poetry is primal. It’s how we come to understand the world around us. Stories give us wholeness and allow us to recover something vital and true in our lives. Stories, as writer Sue Monk Kidd knows, are “the life of the soul.” Telling and hearing stories of how we got through this dreadful pandemic is how we say what happened, with empathy, so that future generations will know what it was like to live in isolation for over a year, to feel afraid while trying to be brave, to cope, and even to grow because of the shared experience. The stories we tell, and the carefully crafted words we use to tell them are an act of remembrance in which our words build monuments to a time when our lives called upon us to carry on and to endure, to know what really matters, to know what to cling to and what to let go.
In making much of the mundane, 52 poets share 74 poems in the anthology “A 21stCentury Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic.” The poems, by diverse and award-winning writers, capture and share the collective Covid experience in which we became “gardeners of the spirit who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth,” as writer May Sarton put it. They reveal that we were brave in our contemplative journey and that we dared “to deal with our bag of fears,” as Eudora Welty said we must. The poetic expressions of such courage are healing. They soothe us and help us recover from, and recall, a transformative experience. This anthology adds to the tradition of sharing stories in well-chosen words that move and enlighten us.
What People Are Saying About A 21st Century Pandemic
These poems, varied in form and content, beautifully capture the global experience of this pandemic as well as the individual emotions and struggles that are, at the same time, unique and universal: fear, defiance, longing, grief, anger, loneliness, gratitude for time and respite, hope―and often, joy in life’s small, continuing gifts. Editor Elayne Clift has gathered a community of poets whose words are haunting, moving, charming, surprising and, finally, comforting. Reading this anthology, you might find yourself saying, Yes, yes, I understand―I’ve felt that way too. I’m not alone.
Cortney Davis, Nurse Practitioner;
author of “I Hear Their Voices Singing: Poems New & Selected”
The Covid-19 pandemic will be dissected by epidemiologists, sociologists, politicians, and historians. Now it’s time for the poets. The pandemic struck every sliver of society, so it’s only fitting that Elayne Clift has gathered poems from all walks of life. These writings will make you stop and think, which is perhaps the very prescription we need to help move us forward.
Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, Clinical Professor of Medicine,
editor of Bellevue Literary Review, and author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error
Poetry has the power to lift us out of our current states, expand our consciousness, and remind us that we are not alone in our feelings. Elayne Clift has compiled a delicious anthology of poetry in her latest book “A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic,” which accomplishes this uplifting. These poems make us smile, laugh, cry, and feel by revealing the heartaches and the unexpected boons of living in a time of plague. The poems raise our awareness, help us feel more deeply, and remind us that we are in this shared experience together. This anthology illuminates the power of mind over body and our innate power to heal. I am grateful for that.
Michael Gigante, PhD, Psychotherapist;
Co-Founder/Director of the North East Psychoneuroimmunology Institute, Brattleboro, VT
2 comments on “NEW RELEASE: A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic”
Irene Sherlock
June 20, 2021 at 2:48 pmSurely, this will become one of the best texts to represent a category of work that will be known as pandemic writing. I am in awe of the range of poetic voices and varying perspectives that bring to life the challenges and unexpected surprises of the last eighteen months. I felt as if I were walking through a museum, taking in one piece of art, then another. Thank you, Editor Elayne Clift for your careful eye. I’ve already ordered several extra copies as gifts for the holidays.
Elayne Clift
July 1, 2021 at 5:14 pmThank you, Irene Sherlock!