Abstract
THE POETICS OF THE PANDAMIC: A STUDY IN SELECTED COVID-19-INSPIRED POEMS
Since the late 2019, the world is physically and emotionally affected by the novel contagious virus called COVID-19 which is ‘[a]n unwelcomed visitor’ (From Ramona L. Hyman’s poem ‘COVID-19: A Prayer’, 2020). It has caused thousands of fatalities across the globe; advanced, developing, as well as underdeveloping nations are suffering in facing pandemic, through relatively. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the poetry assumes a global role during the pandemic. The paper scrutinizes selective examples of COVID- 19-inspired poems to show how poetry can transgress boundaries and assume a globally effective role in facing the social ordeals, in addition to raising awareness about the pandemic. The paper demonstrates how culturally diverse poets from different parts of the world (England, United States, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria, India) respond to the pandemic.
Keywords
COVID-19, digital poetry, Internet, pandemic poetry, social media.
