Love In The Age Of Quarantine Poetry

Written through and inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic, this collection of poetry contains themes around love, heartbreak, abusive relationships, grief, body image, self-love and healing.

Cries From Quarantine is a tender, insightful book of poetry about love of all kinds. From the unconditional type of familial love to the unconventional type of romantic love, the verses curated for this collection are intended to inspire a universal truth: that self-love is at the heart of all love. Each poem is written with gratitude for the stillness brought on by the 2020 pandemic.

An award-winning, multi-genre writer grapples with the pandemic, death of George Floyd, and other crises of our times in gnomic poems written from inside the purgatory (and sudden revelations) of quarantine. Writing from and toward “the endless desire / to be at home in the world,” Sarah Ruhl wrote Love Poems in Quarantine to mark the passage of time when all familiar landmarks disappeared. From the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, to the murder of George Floyd, to months of simultaneous quarantine and protest, this is—in free verse and form, lamentation and meditation—a book of days, a survival kit for spiritual malady. These poems find small solace in domestic absurdities. Even in global crisis, there is the laundry. The dog rolls in something putrid, the child interrupts a Zoom meeting, and dinner must get made, again and again. Using language to travel and touch when bodies could not, Ruhl has drawn with great care a portrait of a year unlike any other in history.

"In a time of so much conflict and hate, why not shine a light on love?" Cries From Quarantine is a tender, insightful book of poetry about love of all kinds. From the unconditional type of familial love to the unconventional type of romantic love, the verses curated for this collection are intended to inspire a universal truth: that self-love is at the heart of all love. Each poem is written with gratitude for the stillness brought on by the 2020 pandemic. Why Cries From Quarantine? Because we all need a way to acknowledge, reflect and release. Quarantine has no doubt been uncomfortable and unfamiliar--at times made worse by an unrelenting sense of loneliness. In this pandemic, so many of us have discovered or reconnected with parts of ourselves that we would have never had the opportunity to reach without the gift of time and isolation. Cries From Quarantine is about gaining a perspective shift and letting go of anything heavy. About finding an outlet for emotional processing and self-expression whether that's journaling, meditating, hiking, dancing...whatever it takes. Poetry just so happened to be the author's choice. She found a path to healing and freedom through writing.What's going to allow you to discover the gift of radical self-acceptance? From there we can accept others, live with more light and love with less conditions. Consider this a self-love movement. Let Cries From Quarantine inspire you.

“Kitty O’Meara…offers us wisdom that can help during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. She is challenging us to grow."—Deepak Chopra, MD, author, Metahuman “Kitty O'Meara is the poet laureate of the pandemic"—O, The Oprah Magazine "An eloquent, heartwarming reflection that will resonate with generations to come… encouragement for a brighter tomorrow."—Kate Winslet "And the People Stayed Home is an uplifting perspective on the resilience of the human spirit and the healing potential we have to change our world for the better." ––Shelf Awareness “Images of nature healing show the author’s vision of hope for the future…The accessible prose and beautiful images make this a natural selection for young readers, but older ones may appreciate the work’s deeper meaning.”— Kirkus Reviews “This is a perfectly illustrated version of a poem that continues to be relevant.”—School Library Journal “A stunning and peaceful offering of introspection and hope.”—The Children’s Book Review Ten Best Children’s Books of 2020: "A calming, optimistic read, and a salve for children trying their best to navigate this time." —Smithsonian Magazine “It captured the kind of optimism people need right now.”—Esquire (UK) “Thank you, Kitty O'Meara…for pointing out that at this very moment, this very day, we can seize the opportunity to restore wholeness to our world."—Sy Montgomery, bestselling author of The Good Good Pig and The Soul of an Octopus “A poem by American writer Kitty O’Meara has deservedly gone viral.”—Edinburgh Evening News And the People Stayed Home is a beautifully produced picture book featuring Kitty O’Meara’s popular, globally viral prose poem about the coronavirus pandemic, which has a hopeful and timeless message. Kitty O’Meara, author of And the People Stayed Home, has been called the “poet laureate of the pandemic.” This illustrated children’s book (ages 4-8) will also appeal to readers of all ages. O’Meara’s thoughtful poem about the pandemic, quarantine, and the future suggests there is meaning to be found in our shared experience of the coronavirus and conveys an optimistic message about the possibility of profound healing for people and the planet. Her words encourage us to look within, listen deeply, and connect with ourselves and the earth in order to heal. O’Meara, a former teacher and chaplain and a spiritual director, clearly captures important aspects of the pandemic experience. Her words, written in March 2020 and shared on Facebook, immediately resonated nationally and internationally and were widely circulated on social media, covered in mainstream news media, and inspired an outpouring of creativity from musicians, dancers, artists, filmmakers, and more. The many highlights include an original composition by John Corigliano that was premiered by Renée Fleming.

Love in the Time of Corona is a product of our times, inspired by the mental and emotional struggles associated with fear, uncertainty, and the isolation experienced during quarantine. It is also an exploration of love, loss, loneliness, and the turmoil that springs from lack of communication, hopelessness, and alienation. However, the underlying themes are those of hope, resiliency, and reconciliation. Love transcends to a realm where the soul’s mere desire is for union, not just with fellow human beings, but also with oneself and with Nature.

SINCERELY, COVID: LOVE NOTES FROM QUARANTINE IS A COLLECTION OF POEMS WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS AND ISOLATION. THESE POEMS REFLECT THE SADNESS AND LONELINESS THAT WAS FELT WITHIN MY HEART.

Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine is an anthology of travel accounts, by a diverse range of writers and academics. Challenging conventional academic ‘authority’, each contributor writes, from memory during the Covid-19 lockdown, about a place they have previously visited, ‘accompanied’ by an historical traveller who published an account of the same place. As immobility is forced upon us, at least for the immediate future, we have the chance to reflect. Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine presents opportunities to approach a text as a scholar differently. We break with the traditional academic ‘rules’ by inserting ourselves into the narrative and foregrounding the personal, subjective elements of literary scholarship. Each contributor critiques an historical description of a place about which, simultaneously, they write a personal account. The travel writer, Philip Marsden, posits a fundamental difference between traditional ‘academic’ writing and travel writing in that travel narratives do not, or ought not anyway, begin by assuming a scholarly authoritative understanding of the places they describe. Instead, they attempt to say what they found and how they felt about it. The very good point we think Marsden makes, and the one this book tries to demonstrate, is that, as a matter of form, the first-person narrative has the ability to expose the research process: to allow the reader to see when and how a scholarly transformation takes place; to give the scholar the opportunity to openly foreground their own subjectivity and say ‘this is the personal journey that led me to my conclusions’; to problematize the unchallenged authority of the scholar. Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine challenges the idea of scholarly authority by embracing the subjective nature of research and the first-person element. We address a problematic distance between travel writing practice and travel writing scholarship, in which the latter talks about the former without ever really talking to it. Defining travel writing as a genre has often proved more difficult than it might seem, but Peter Hulme has suggested that it is ethically necessary for the writer to have visited the place described. Hulme asserts that ‘travel writing is certainly literature, but it is never fiction’. If this seems obvious, Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine asks the reader to consider the idea that if visiting the place described is necessary for the writer to claim they have produced a travel account, might it also be necessary, or at least advantageous and valuable, for the writer of a scholarly critique of that account to have done the same.