Not Another Pandemic Book!: Watch This Space Turned Pandemic Poetry Into a Book of Historical Events

 

When the pandemic hit in 2020 and everybody was on lockdown, it seemed like a lot of people suddenly grabbed ALL of that time they had and used it to write! Or they decided to try their hand at writing and made the leap to write a book. Soon we started seeing poems, essays and even books that were all related to the pandemic in some way.

 

Well, guess what? I was one of those people!

 

For most of 2020, I was working my job as a DSP (Direct Support Professional), which is another term for a caregiver. I supported individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DD). My job required me to show up during the apocalypse – er, the pandemic, so every morning I had to work, I suited up and shipped out! During most of 2020, I was still suffering from a dry period in my writing. I hardly did any creative writing. Most of my writing was done in daily reports I had to write at work – and, you know something? I think that really helped me to get back into the writing habit!

 

Because soon I was writing poems about things going on all around me.

 

My husband works at a steel mill, so he had the luck of working from home. In fact, with my kids at home since the schools closed, I was the only one leaving the house on my work days! I wrote about this in a poem.

 

And because people were being stopped by the police because they were out and about when everybody was ordered to stay at home, my work reminded all of us to keep our badges with us in our car so we could show it to the police in case we got stopped. Fortunately, I was never stopped! But this fear was something that found its way into a poem I wrote.

 

I also wrote about how, on one evening during the riots after the murder of Jacob Floyd, I was driving through downtown Eugene watching a lot of people causing chaos, holding up signs, yelling and chanting things. (It was scary and I’m glad I made it through that okay!)

 

But the pandemic affected work, too. I wrote all about this in poems.

 

Soon I was writing more than poems and work reports. In October, I opened up a spiral notebook and started writing what would later become a nonfiction book. I stopped writing this book in order to try writing a novel that November, for NaNoWriMo, but only got as far as one chapter. When December rolled around, I got back to work on that nonfiction book, and I finished writing it on Christmas Eve. It was an early Christmas present to myself: A book I had written!

 

I didn’t stop there, though. I decided to take those poems I wrote during the first year of the pandemic (yes, we had more than one year of it!) and decided to write a collection of poems about the pandemic. After I felt this book was complete, I tried submitting it to various publishers. I actually spent a couple of years trying to find a publisher for it, all to no avail. All of the publishers I submitted the manuscript to ended up responding with rejections. It didn't win any of the contests I entered it in, either. I figured that those editors were all tired of the influx of pandemic books the literary community was flooded with and just didn’t want to see mine add to it.

 

So I put that book away for a while and focused on other books.

 

Meanwhile, I continued to write poetry. This time, I wrote poems about current events as well as poems on the theme of loss, grief, friendship and strength.

 

When I found a publisher interested in publishing my longer poetry books, I pulled out that pandemic poetry book and revised it. Instead of containing poems from the first year of the pandemic, I added more poems to it to cover the pandemic AND events going on during 2021 to 2023. I mean, there was A LOT going on both locally as well as nationally, and I wrote all of these poems about them. So I grabbed all of the poems that fell into that category, added them to the manuscript, and sent it off to my new publisher. The book was eventually accepted and Watch This Space has now been published.

 

There are, however, a few poems in this book that were not written during 2020-23.

 

My dad passed away in 2015, after basically drinking himself to death. He had that “one more drink” that killed him, just as my “one more drink” almost killed me. The only difference is that I received medical care when he did not. He died alone inside of a van from a heart attack. For a long time after his death, I was struggling with anger and confusion over why he would do that to himself. But as a former alcoholic, I know the kind of prison that alcoholism can keep us in. That kind of addiction is damn hard to kick for good. The one attempt where I was successful in staying sober was actually my third, so I get it. I understand what alcoholism can do to a person and the lies it tells us in order to get us to keep drinking. Anyway, after the pandemic hit, this struggle turned into a string of questions I kept wondering about, such as this: Did my dad drink himself to death because he knew that the world was basically in chaos? Did he know things were only going to get worse?

 

In one part of the poem “The Question of Why” I wrote about this on page 77:

 

“Did you know

Did you foresee

All the trouble

Ahead? All the chaos

Of a pandemic?”

 

My dad didn’t die during the years covered in this book, but I certainly had to wonder if this was one of the reasons why he had a death wish.

 

I also included the poem “As We Talk” because, interestingly, lockdown actually strengthened communication between a lot of people that normally didn’t communicate with each other very much.

 

And, finally, I also included the poem I wrote decades ago titled “Be Strong, Woman” because of the overturning of Roe vs Wade in 2020. I felt this poem was appropriate to include because, even after 2020, women’s reproductive rights were still being challenged and women were still losing control over what they could do with their bodies once pregnancy was confirmed.

 

Nevertheless, almost all of the poems in this collection are new and were never published. Well, they are now, as part of this book.

 

I like to say that one good thing came out of the year 2020: That while the whole world came crashing down, and after I was about to lose hope, I was able to start writing again. In the chaos of a pandemic, I turned to the one thing that brought stability and joy to my life.

 

But I think a couple of other good things came out of 2020 as well:

 

The chance to know a family better after we offered to help them during those trying times. This was a family consisting of a single mother with three adult children and all of them were immunocompromised (a word we all got to know well during the pandemic!). We either helped them to get food, medication, or assistance through local services. Sometimes we gave them rides or cleaned for them. One person in this family is someone who my oldest had been friends with for years, and in helping them, I got to know her better and she was like a daughter to me. I am grateful I had the chance to get to know this family better thanks to our assistance provided during the pandemic, and this book is actually dedicated to one of them.

 

And the other good thing that came out of 2020? The start of what would be become my pandemic poetry book.

 

Many thanks to Alien Buddha Press for publishing my book! I am so thrilled it is finally in print and out there in the world.

 

Here is the blurb:

 

Through a captivating blend of evocative language and vivid imagery, Colclasure takes readers on a journey through the myriad landscapes of COVID and its impacts on society. From the darkest depths of despair to the radiant heights of joy, each poem in "Watch This Space" is a testament to the resilience of the spirit.

 

With profound insight, Colclasure delves into themes of health, love, loss, hope, and redemption. Whether reflecting on personal struggles or advocating for social change, her words resonate with authenticity and compassion, leaving an indelible impact.

 

"Watch This Space" transcends being a mere collection of poems; it is a profound exploration of the experience amidst a pandemic. With each turn of the page, readers are drawn deeper into the labyrinth of emotion, emerging with a newfound appreciation for the beauty and complexity of a sickness.

 

Here is the buy link