Crisis and Hope: A Writing Workshop

Theme: Coping with (the COVID-19) Crisis

Guiding Question: What blessings, possibilities and hopes are emerging amidst the grief, fear and anxiety of the coronavirus pandemic crisis? (Or another crisis)

Brainstorm:

• Where have you spent most of your time in quarantine? What have you been doing with your time?
• (Describe it in detail: List the physical surroundings: What do you see, hear, smell, taste, touch?)

• What has been new, different, interesting, or surprising about this time for you? (Try to include things that have been difficult as well as things that have perhaps been new or different in a positive way).
• For example:
• On the difficult side: I have been feeling very sad and existential, especially when I hear the news; I have been worried about my parents; I have been anxious about how I'll be able to afford rent, I have been anxious about how to serve vulnerable members of my community like the homeless; it was really hard for me when John Prine, one of my favorite musicians, died from COVID-19; it has also been really hard for me to not touch my face and it seems to be itching more because of it
• On the positive side: It has been nice to sleep in, I've had more time to read books and write music, I've caught up with old friends all around the world, and I'm spending more time with my dog, etc.

• Who have you been thinking about during this time? Who are you thinking about now? (List as many different people, specific individuals and groups, as you can think of).

• What ideas, hopes, prayers, or visions have been on your mind or in your heart?

Examples:

• "Ode to a Pandemic" by Adam Gottlieb [below]
• What is an "ode"? (Explain difference between modern "odes" and classical "odes") Why write an "ode to a pandemic"?
• Note the "zooming out" motion in the poem's voice
• "Prerequisites for Preservation" by Naima Penniman (see link)
• This poem was written several years ago, long before the COVID-19 crisis. Do you feel the poem has something to say to us now, in this current crisis? If so, how does the poem seem to speak to this moment? 
• Note the use of the anaphora (repetition) "We're gonna need." How is this form working for the poem? (What effect does it have?)

Write: 

• Write a piece that reflects on the nature of this historic moment, for you personally and/or for the world. 
• Remember our guiding question: What blessings, possibilities and hopes are emerging amidst the grief, fear and anxiety of the coronavirus pandemic crisis?
• If you're not sure what to write about, look over your brainstorm list, choose an image or idea that stands out to you, and start writing about that.
• If you're not sure how to start, consider modeling one of the examples. You could write an "ode" to the pandemic, as in Gottlieb's poem. Or you could use the line "We're gonna need" or a similar phrase of your own choosing, as an anaphora, as in Penniman's poem.

ode to a pandemic

From the couch on which I sit

with a pug dog on my lap

beside my window on this wet gray day in Chicago,

to the folks along the highway in their tents, trying to sleep,

to grandmothers in nursing homes, whose hands ache for a hand

To the doctors, nurses, paramedics,

electricians, transit workers, plumbers, pharmacists, firefighters,

farmers, cashiers, ambulance drivers, grocers, cooks, food deliverers,

water systems operators, warehouse workers

To folk in Rome, Beijing, Madrid, Johannesburg, New York,

San Juan, Baghdad, Seoul, London, Rio, Mexico City,

Moscow, Cairo, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Tokyo,

Delhi, São Paulo, L.A., staying home from work

Everywhere we are together

and everywhere alone

Bored, or anxious, talking on Zoom,

washing our hands, watching the news

Every day our deaths are tolled

and stories go untold

Too many lives to weep for

(Who would weep but for their own?)

And yet, which deaths are not for me

to mourn as I would family?

Has not our sense of separateness

been wholly overthrown?

(The evolutionary origins of viruses are unclear

The only fact on which we can agree, they say,

is that they are primordial, ancient as life on earth itself,

integral to the universe, keeping it intact...

And aren't we all as small to God

yet vital to the earth?)

And from each harsh and personal death

affirming the union of our shared breath

is not humanity being born

though it is a painful birth?