Every Tuesday after yoga, I go to the library. I was lucky to have gone on Tuesday, March 24, to pick up The Poet X, which I reserved through interlibrary loan, because on Wednesday, March 25, the library closed at 6 p.m. and remains closed. I am told there will be no late fees during the coronavirus crisis.
I go to the library to find things I don’t know I am looking for. Amazon’s algorithms can never replicate the serendipity of a book returns cart. I did make an online purchase from my favorite independent bookstore — located 200 miles away, so I’m already socially distant from it — but I found myself reading fewer books when I had to consider the purchase price.
And so what was I to read during April? A lot of poetry.
I begin my writing day with reading poetry and keeping a poetry journal. I write about what moves me, what I notice, and what “wonders me,” as my dad says. What wondered me during this pandemic edition of National Poetry Month was how every poem felt like it had more heft and breadth than it would on a regular April day. And whatever every poem was actually about, it was suddenly about This, about Now, about COVID-19.
• The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm by Wallace Stevens. A friend sent me this poem, which I’d printed to save in a non-pandemic year. Soon afterward we did a Zoom chat with friends who had a baby right before Easter. Their small house is not quiet, with five children, ages 9 to newborn. And although the streets around them are calm, the emptiness is evidence of an economic storm. Normally our town is filled to bursting in March and April as tourists come to enjoy the beauty of spring. This year there are no outdoor festivals, no concerts, no 5Ks, no golf tournaments, no bike rides through the hills, no state parks full before 10 a.m., no buses crowding the National Museum of the Pacific War. I haven’t heard a single motorcycle group rev their engines on Main Street. It’s an eerie calm.
• “Tree at My Window,” by Robert Frost. This poem comes from a collection I reread this month. On Friday, April 10, I donned mask and gloves and helped the Central Texas Food Bank do a drive-through distribution. The cars started arriving at 5:45 a.m., and the first one came from another county. We unloaded twice the normal amount of food. As each car window passed, each driver was like a tree, each one “taken and tossed,” each one “taken and swept / And all but lost.” But as always, “Fate had her imagination about her” — one woman thanked me in sign language.
• Ordinary Life by Barbara Crooker. Much about my own day-to-day life remains the same. I work from home, as I have for fifteen years. My husband goes to work in a charitable medical clinic, where he has worked for fourteen. But I am appreciating every ordinary thing in new ways — a drive-by birthday parade for an 80-year-old, a drive-in church service with radios tuned to the proper frequency (honk your Amen), a brightly colored chalk blessing on a driveway. Each day, as Crooker writes, is “a day of grace” and “a day that unwrapped itself / like an unexpected gift.”
• A Ritual to Read to Each Other, by William Stafford. Did I mention it’s spring? With twice the usual amount of rain, it’s as lush as Ireland. I’ve never seen so many couples walking, so many families riding bikes. It’s as if we are all elephants lumbering out of our homes to enjoy warm sun and cool wind. We can’t hold each other’s tails, but we all wave with enthusiasm. One woman calls from across the street, “Be well!”
April Pages
Poetry
Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems, Barbara Crooker (still savoring)
Poems About Trees, edit. Harry Thomas (my favorites, again)
Adult
The Mirror & The Light, Hilary Mantel
Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, Phyllis Trible
Early Readers and Picture Books
(Perusing my bookshelves for our June Children’s Book Club, just in case I can’t get back to the library any time soon.)
Middle Grade and YA
The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo (Join us for Children’s Book Club, May 8!)
Blacky the Crow, Thornton Burgess
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling (one chapter a week, since August)
Made Progress
David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens (Purchased through Audible, with Richard Armitage making each character’s voice distinct.)
Your turn
1. What are you reading during the pandemic that you might not have read otherwise?
2. What poems are speaking to you in unexpected and lovely ways?
3. Share your April pages. Sliced, started, and abandoned are all fair game.
Photo by Nana B Agyei, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.
Browse more from A Ritual to Read to Each Other
Browse more Pandemic Journal
- Perspective: The Two, The Only: Calvin and Hobbes - December 16, 2022
- Children’s Book Club: A Very Haunted Christmas - December 9, 2022
- By Heart: ‘The night is darkening round me’ by Emily Brontë - December 2, 2022
Glynn says
Just yesterday I read Stevens’ “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm.” Poetic minds read the same poetry?
I have two works I’m slowly reading through that I might not have read had it not been for the virus. One is a history textbook, “Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story” by Wilfred McClay. And I’m rereading “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy” by Tolkien. I’m also rereading the mysteries of S.S. Van Dine, published in the 1920s and 1930s.
What’s clear is that most of my reading for April took a turn for the light and the escapist.
April reading
Mystery
The Benson Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine
The City of London Murder by Roy Lewis
The Canary Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine
The Body int he Dales by J.R. Ellis
The Greene Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine
The Case of the Missing Letter by Alison Golden
The Bishop Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine
The Apartment Murder by Roy Lewis
The Scarab Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine
Fiction / Romance
The Billionaire’s Christmas Hideaway by Kimberley Monpetit
The Neighbor’s Secret by Kimberley Monpetit
The Executive’s Secret by Kimberley Monpetit
28 Days with a Billionaire by Kimberley Krey
Gambling with the Billionaire by Agnes Canestri
The Billionaire’s Secret by Lorana Hoopes
Blind Date with a Billionaire Professor by Evangeline Kelly
Her Secret Billionaire’s Roommate by Bree Livingston
Poetry
Saudade by Nigel Kent
The Kingdom by Matt Duggan
Left Waiting by River Dixon
Megan Willome says
Light and escapist fare makes a lot of sense. I’ve been drawn in the opposite direction, but I am glad to know we have read at least one poem in common this month.
Maureen says
Barbara Crooker is wonderful… and prolific. I’ve reviewed some of her poetry.
I have nearly finished Erik Larson’s 500-page-plus ‘The Splendid and the Vile’. It doesn’t have the kind of page-turning urgency as Larson’s other works but it’s still a good read that creates a rather different image of Winston Churchill, once you learn about his many eccentricities (e.g., pink silk underwear).
The other books I mentioned last time I’ve also finished reading. Among them, for Lent: Margaret Adams Parker’s ‘Praying the Stations of the Cross: Finding Hope in a Weary Land’. Parker, whom I’ve met (she lives in Alexandria, Va.), is an artist of some renown. Her woodcuts are marvelous, as are her sculptures.
Next on my list are Philip Metres’s ‘Shrapnel Maps’ and Lela Chatti’s ‘Deluge’, both poetry collections that have received some remarkable press. On order are Laura M. Fabrycky’s ‘Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus: Exploring the World and Wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’ (a memoir) and Craig Morgan Teicher’s ‘We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress.’
I’ve recently discovered Brian Doyle’s work and look forward to reading his ‘One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder’ and his poetry.
Today, by the way, I’ll be listening to Dana Gioia on the topic ‘Poetry and Beauty in Solitude’.
Maureen says
That should be Leila Chatti (I mistyped her name).
Megan Willome says
Glad to know another Barbara Crooker fan. I realized I’ve printed/saved so many of her poems through the years, I might as well read a collection.
I’ve been wondering about the new Erik Larson book. My husband loved “In the Garden of Beasts,” and I loved “Issac’s Storm.”
Glynn says
I loved Larson’s White City.
Bethany R. says
Thanks so much for this post, Megan. Fun to see what you and others are reading. 🙂 I’m also a big fan of Barbara Crooker and was just reading Radiance this week. 🙂
i says
Bethany, I’ve saved Crooker’s poems for years but never read an entire collection by her.
Prasanta says
I am also reading more poetry these days, and interestingly, was also drawn to “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm” by Wallace Stevens.
Megan Willome says
We’re kindred spirits, Prasanta.
Prasanta says
Indeed! That makes me happy, Megan. <3
I actually read some poems on FB live this past month for National Poetry Month, and that one by Wallace Stevens was one of those I read. : )
lynn__ says
Sounds like this is a reading community 🙂 My Coronavirus reading has focused on encouraging words, like John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us, which I heard of here at TS. Also, a brief poetry collection, The Stream & the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov. I am slowly savoring a hardback with lovely watercolor illustrations by Ruth Chou Simons: Beholding and Becoming, the Art of Everyday Worship. Also read Be Not Afraid by Johann Christoph Arnold on overcoming the fear of death. Thanks for asking…and sharing your lists.
Megan Willome says
We are a reading community, Lynn! And we love lists, so thank you for sharing yours. Each one sounds rich.
My copy of O’Donohue’s book is supposedly on its way, but I hoped it would have been here by now. Poetry should receive priority shipping, right?