This is my collection of pandemic poems, written from March of 2020 through May of 2022). It’s interesting how compressed that time feels. So much was changing so quickly between a pandemic none of us understood, the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests, wildfires first in Australia and then in California, a contentious, inflamed presidential election and the chaotic aftermath when the loser of that election refused to admit his loss, and rallied his supporters to riot on the capital. It was everything all at once. For that reason, this is largely listed in chronological order, from top to bottom.
Here is the full collection listed in order:
Commuter (10/20)
Morning Ritual (4/20)
2pm Drag (WFH in the Apocalypse) (4/20)
Ciao Amore (4/20)
Release the Karen (5/20)
This World was Always in Us (6/20)
Independence Day Parade (7/20)
The Royal Chlorination (05/22)
Ingrained (10/20)
Conspiracy Unmasked (10/20)
Scraping the Bottom (12/20)
Leave it On (12/20)
Rewired Reflexes (08/21)
Even though we were quarantined, I was fortunate enough to perform several of these pieces virtually, and had one piece in an interactive art show. The first project I worked on in the early pandemic was “Poetry Tag” on Instagram, hosted by Atrocious Poets. I was given a piece of visual art and had 24 hours to turn around a poem, that would then be used as a prompt for the next piece of visual art, etc. etc. It was very cool and I was proud of the work everyone did and, honestly, I was losing my damn mind in April 2020 so it was a nice outlet. My contribution to that project was “Ciao Amore”.
I was also fortunate to have my poem “Independence Day Parade” featured in the Atrocious Poets zine “I Don’t Want to Go Back to Normal” in July of 2020.
My poem “Ingrained” was featured on the “As It Happens” poetry/visual arts collaboration organized by Atrocious Poets at the Woodstock Courthouse in November – December of 2020. Even though we couldn’t do all of the in person interactive events we wanted to due to the pandemic, it was still an incredibly rewarding and inspiring experience.
I also collaborated with my talented dancer wife Christine on a dance poetry collaboration with the poem “Leave it On” that was part of the 2021 “Fear No Art” virtual show in May of 2021, hosted by College of Lake County. The piece was originally a proof of concept for a larger dance poetry collaboration that Christine organized with Atrocious Poets, Titled “Relevẻ in August of 2021.” Each poet was paired with a dancer and they created a video of their collective work together. I was paired with the talented Nicole Ozment, and together we produced “Rewired Reflexes“. A line from that piece gave this collection its name.
As you can see, I participated in a lot of projects with Atrocious Poets in that timeframe. They are intelligent, talented, funny people that take their writing seriously, but don’t take themselves too seriously. They are always great to work with, but were particularly a godsend during the pandemic, when I felt like I was losing my shit.
Chernoff Writing.com 