COVID-19 Haiku - A Poetic Reflection on the Emotional Weight of the Pandemic

Item

Title

COVID-19 Haiku - A Poetic Reflection on the Emotional Weight of the Pandemic

Description

It is my belief that, when recording history, we should not only document basic facts, data, statistics, and the like, for the human experience is just as important. For future generations to truly be able to understand our time on a deeper level, they need to know more than just what happened: they need to know what it was like. By any creative means, we must record those nuances: what we think, how we feel, and our perceptions on the matter. Poetry can be a vivid tool for capturing the emotional essence of an experience and can serve as insight into the psyche of someone from the past. That is why I chose to write a series of ten haikus reflecting on the chronology of the COVID-19 pandemic and its many ramifications. I attempted to capture the hopes people had for this year, the sudden rate at which the virus became a global problem, the uncertainty that plagued people stuck at home, the ways in which the virus became politicized, and what we hope the future has in store for us. I hope that, through writing from my experiences living through the pandemic in Chippewa Valley, I can offer even a small glimpse at the people of history, not just the events.

Date

December 10, 2020

Subject

Communities and neighborhoods
Government

This item was submitted on December 11, 2020 by [anonymous user] using the form “Contribute an object” on the site “Western Wisconsin COVID-19 Archive Project”: http://lib02dev.uwec.edu/Omeka/s/C19

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