This Uncommon Solitude: Pandemic Poetry from the Pacific Northwest

This Uncommon Solitude captures the myriad and diverse experiences of Red Wheelbarrow Writers during these times of quarantine and the COVID-19 pandemic. We reach out to connect but we can't physically touch each other. We are shaken by news of widespread suffering and death caused by a novel virus that inexorably spirals out of control. We feel powerless and isolated. Ongoing catastrophes of racism and environmental decline trouble our hearts. For many of us, poetry has helped to connect us, one to another, as we share experiences and insights, express our grief and sadness, fears and pain, gratitude and hope. In joining together, we feel our way forward as best we can toward making sense of our transformed world.

The Red Wheelbarrow Writers hosts a virtual community of writers bearing witness to this viral isolation, these unfolding crises, through words and images, emotions and spirit. We see our role as chroniclers and interpreters of these unprecedented times. In exquisite detail and broad concept, our words convey anguish and hope, power and humor, despair and loveliness. We hope that each poem brings to you, as it has to us, the exceptional gift of connection during this time of isolation and change.