Poetry review – PANDORAâS PANDEMIC: Sue Wallace-Shaddad considers Alwyn Marriageâs honest but hopeful poetic account of life in a time of covid-19
Pandoraâs Pandemic
Alwyn Marriage
SPM Publications
ISBN 978-1-9162263-7-1
www.spmpublications.com
58pp ÂŁ8.00
This collection, very much of its time, presents the coronavirus pandemic as experienced by the poet and those around her. Marriage has a strong sense of narrative and builds a complete picture by noting everyday details. Many aspects of life that people took for granted were up-ended by covid restrictions and Marriageâs poems provide a reminder and record of this.
A good poem to mention first has a particularly apt title: âWrong place, wrong time / or Where did I catch It?â Marriage describes visits to different venues (Arts club, cheap hotel, literary festival) but comes to the conclusion: âso yes, we could have caught it anywhere.â The second half of this poem compares this mystery to something we must assume as being equally arbitrary: pigeon droppings landing on a womanâs head as she walks along.
The collection has themes which loop back and repeat, much as covid lockdowns have been imposed again and again. âMy new friendsâ tells us of the helpfulness of neighbours and strangers
who wave and call a friendly greeting,
wish me well and wouldnât dream
of invading my virus-free space
In the poem âPass it onâ, Marriage takes the idea of this new friendliness further. She suggests that if people
were to offer the same to at least one other
person today, the world would very quickly
become a better place.
In the first lockdown, people clapped on their doorsteps every Thursday to show support for the NHS. This social phenomenon is described in quite a political poem âThursday eveningâ:
Maybe in our hearts we harbour a belief
that this cacophony might reach
thick ears of politicians [âŠ]
We may associate lockdown very much with solitude but the poem âIsolationâ shows the exact opposite. Here a widow, who lives on her own, benefits from âcompassionâ and âfriendlinessâ which
have brought kindly visitors to her gate
to chat, and inspired others to ring
âThe day visitâ reminds us of how important touch is to well-being. Two people meet, keeping to all the rules of social distancing but then âshared a hug, more powerful than words, so warm and closeâ.
In âOut of the Windâ the poet goes on a âpermissible walkâ. I was struck by the reference to âcorona-length hairâ. People who have gone through lockdown will immediately recognise that this refers to the fact that, for months, visiting a hairdresser was not permitted. These two words have a wealth of meaning behind them.
The language in this collection is plain and unadorned; it represents the sharing of honest feelings which do not need embellishment. Marriage deals with the very difficult subject of her own illness and slow recovery in a number of poems. âSame Personâ is a haunting poem showing âthe ravages of coronavirusâ on her body as she compares photographs âjust a year apart but separated / by our modern plagueâ. In âFrom my sickbedâ, the repetition of almost the same words in each stanza works well to describe her feelings of exhaustion and lassitude. This is reinforced by the spacing of lines at the end of the poem:
lay
back
down
again
.
The poet also shares the death of her brother in âMy brotherâs death dayâ. Very poignantly, her brother died on the date of her late fatherâs birthday.
Did something deep inside your
medically-induced sleep recognise
the date and chose this day to die?
Another difficult aspect of lockdown for many was the impossibility of saying a proper goodbye to loved ones â funerals were often put online. âCremation in a time of lock-downâ reminds us of the starkness of this situation but still manages to find a silver lining:
I was free to cry, without the need
to hide my grief from other members
of the congregation [âŠ]
The poem â3 plyâ discusses fear of âcatching the disease / or of too much loneliness to bearâ alongside the simple happiness for some of being at home and close to nature. There is a beautiful image in its final lines
Maybe the rope of life has always
woven these threads in subtle harmony,
without our noticing.
In the poem âPandoraâs Pandemicâ, Marriage highlights ‘angerâ, âdisapprovalâ, âcheatingâ, âlonelinessâ, âdepressionâ and âdespairâ as aspects of this period but suggests there is still âHopeâ. She considers that this might lead either to âunrealistic expectationsâ or remind us
that how the world was when the virus
snapped the string of normal life, need not
determine how it will be when we are free.
â
Dream onâ is a âbeforeâ and âafterâ poem. It is remarkable that Marriage, despite everything, still finds the positive: âmost of the time we were contentâ but she also asks whether in future âwould all that we had gained be lost againâ.
The collection ends on a note of hope in âRemembering covidâ:
but in our hearts we kept the hope alive
that in a future not too far away, life
would return to something more like normal.
These poems are a strong testament to all that the poet lived through and remind us of what is important going forwards.
London Grip Poetry Review – Alwyn Marriage
November 27, 2021
Poetry review – PANDORAâS PANDEMIC: Sue Wallace-Shaddad considers Alwyn Marriageâs honest but hopeful poetic account of life in a time of covid-19
This collection, very much of its time, presents the coronavirus pandemic as experienced by the poet and those around her. Marriage has a strong sense of narrative and builds a complete picture by noting everyday details. Many aspects of life that people took for granted were up-ended by covid restrictions and Marriageâs poems provide a reminder and record of this.
A good poem to mention first has a particularly apt title: âWrong place, wrong time / or Where did I catch It?â Marriage describes visits to different venues (Arts club, cheap hotel, literary festival) but comes to the conclusion: âso yes, we could have caught it anywhere.â The second half of this poem compares this mystery to something we must assume as being equally arbitrary: pigeon droppings landing on a womanâs head as she walks along.
The collection has themes which loop back and repeat, much as covid lockdowns have been imposed again and again. âMy new friendsâ tells us of the helpfulness of neighbours and strangers
In the poem âPass it onâ, Marriage takes the idea of this new friendliness further. She suggests that if people
In the first lockdown, people clapped on their doorsteps every Thursday to show support for the NHS. This social phenomenon is described in quite a political poem âThursday eveningâ:
We may associate lockdown very much with solitude but the poem âIsolationâ shows the exact opposite. Here a widow, who lives on her own, benefits from âcompassionâ and âfriendlinessâ which
âThe day visitâ reminds us of how important touch is to well-being. Two people meet, keeping to all the rules of social distancing but then âshared a hug, more powerful than words, so warm and closeâ.
In âOut of the Windâ the poet goes on a âpermissible walkâ. I was struck by the reference to âcorona-length hairâ. People who have gone through lockdown will immediately recognise that this refers to the fact that, for months, visiting a hairdresser was not permitted. These two words have a wealth of meaning behind them.
The language in this collection is plain and unadorned; it represents the sharing of honest feelings which do not need embellishment. Marriage deals with the very difficult subject of her own illness and slow recovery in a number of poems. âSame Personâ is a haunting poem showing âthe ravages of coronavirusâ on her body as she compares photographs âjust a year apart but separated / by our modern plagueâ. In âFrom my sickbedâ, the repetition of almost the same words in each stanza works well to describe her feelings of exhaustion and lassitude. This is reinforced by the spacing of lines at the end of the poem:
The poet also shares the death of her brother in âMy brotherâs death dayâ. Very poignantly, her brother died on the date of her late fatherâs birthday.
Another difficult aspect of lockdown for many was the impossibility of saying a proper goodbye to loved ones â funerals were often put online. âCremation in a time of lock-downâ reminds us of the starkness of this situation but still manages to find a silver lining:
The poem â3 plyâ discusses fear of âcatching the disease / or of too much loneliness to bearâ alongside the simple happiness for some of being at home and close to nature. There is a beautiful image in its final lines
In the poem âPandoraâs Pandemicâ, Marriage highlights ‘angerâ, âdisapprovalâ, âcheatingâ, âlonelinessâ, âdepressionâ and âdespairâ as aspects of this period but suggests there is still âHopeâ. She considers that this might lead either to âunrealistic expectationsâ or remind us
Dream onâ is a âbeforeâ and âafterâ poem. It is remarkable that Marriage, despite everything, still finds the positive: âmost of the time we were contentâ but she also asks whether in future âwould all that we had gained be lost againâ.
The collection ends on a note of hope in âRemembering covidâ:
These poems are a strong testament to all that the poet lived through and remind us of what is important going forwards.