It’s 2020. COVID-19 has caused many people to practice social distancing and self-quarantining in order to flatten the curve and protect more vulnerable members of the populace. Basically, it’s a Star Trek episode in the making (classic Trek, not dystopic Trek).
In our homes/lives we do all that we can to distract ourselves from the sudden boredom of being confined. We are going … stir crazy. [cue the Muppets singing “We’ve Got Cabin Fever” but the song stopping just short of when the wind picks up and then repeating, stopping short again, and repeating again over and over for however long the sh*t-storm lasts.]
Lots of people are learning languages, writing books, catching up with old friends, etc. Me? I’m writing an experimental, thinly-veiled, radioplay memoir patchworked together from fairy tales that never quite reach their happy endings.
But that’s just in the mornings. What am I doing in the afternoons? Trekking.
I’m cleaning up the site, prepping a new edition of Random Bearings, and trying to decide what my next poetry project is going to be. Probably the hoarding thing, but maybe the my-life-is-not-a-rom-com thing. Who knows.
But that’s me. I’m not you. I wanna know what you’re doing to keep yourself engaged during all this social distancing.
Specifically, I want to know what poetry stuff you’re doing. Because once upon a time I gave you a primer on how Everything Is Poetry and I would LOVE for you to try to prove me wrong.
I CHALLENGE YOU to find something that is not a poem. Find it, post about it on twitter or instagram, and tag me @RoseJermusyk.
If you prove me wrong, I will publicly denounce my core philosophy of poetry.
If You are wrong, I will write a poem about the item in question. And I invite you to at least attempt to do the same.