Some of the other contributions were read at a Zoom session in Ledbury’s online Festival in July 2020. This poem was later made into a short film that is now on YouTube Thank you to everyone for their contribution. I have found these poems extremely resonant, and I hope you will too. Other ways of thinking about, or seeing, what is happening in this present time. Nonetheless, in reading these poems, I find reflections on, and insight into, my own experiences. I am aware, as many people are, that for people and places in the world, the challenges are huge and sometimes extremely harrowing, compared to my own. Though of course everyone’s individual experience of this situation is unique. These poems were written during Lockdown and the Coronavirus pandemic, at a time when it seemed the whole country, and in fact the whole world was going through the same crisis. ( A recording of this event will be uploaded to the Festival YouTube channel in a few days.) They read alongside poets who submitted to Ledbury Poetry Festival’s online call out. The event featured a fascinating selection of Lockdown inspired poems, including poets commissioned by LPF, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sarala Estruch, Suzannah Evans, Elaine Beckett and Kim Moore. On Sunday 5 July, at 12.30pm – 1.30pm, there was a Poetry of the Lockdown event as part of Ledbury Poetry Festival Online.
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.Thank you to everyone who has submitted Lockdown poems. My left hand hooking you round the waist, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,īut each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods, I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!) I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured. My son emailed me – “Where did you find this?” so I sent him a link to this page. When I left teaching, students gave me a gift: Leaves of Grass. When I was a teacher, I used the following passage all the time. Especially on this day in this era, as those of us in America work to keep our foundation and legacy healthy. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this.
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