Books These poets are teaming up to reflect on the coronavirus crisis — in verse By Seija Rankin Seija Rankin Seija Rankin is the former books editor at Entertainment Weekly. She left EW in 2022. EW's editorial guidelines Published on June 9, 2020 11:00AM EDT Photo: Knopf Doubleday When COVID-19 began to wreak havoc across the world, poet Alice Quinn had an idea. As the longtime poetry editor at The New Yorker and executive director of the Poetry Society of America, she decided to use her connections to turn society's pain into art. Quinn began gathering the quarantine writings of her peers across the country, and the result is Together in a Sudden Strangeness, a collection of poems touching on subjects from the plight of first responders to the unique loneliness of worldwide isolation. To celebrate the anthology's publication, Quinn will host a virtual reading with seven of the collected poets (Joshua Bennett, Billy Collins, Cornelius Eady, Deb Garrison, Ada Limón, Amit Majmudar, and Kamilah Aisha Moon) for Washington, D.C. bookstore Politics & Prose tonight at 7 p.m. ET (register here). Below, you can read two poems excerpted from Together in a Sudden Strangeness. "Dad Poem" by Joshua Bennett No visitors allowed is what the masked woman behind the desk says only seconds after me and your mother arrive for the ultrasound. But I’m the father, I explain, like it means something defensible. She looks at me as if I’ve just confessed to being a minotaur in human disguise. Repeats the line. Caught in the space between astonishment & rage, we hold hands a minute or so more, imagining you a final time before our rushed goodbye, your mother vanishing down the corridor to call forth a veiled vision of you through glowing white machines. One she will bring to me later on, printed and slight -ly wrinkled at its edges, this secondhand sight of you almost unbearable both for its beauty and necessary deferral. What can I be to you now, smallest one, across the expanse of category & world catastrophe, what love persists in a time without touch "Leaving Evanston" by Deborah Garrison She left the bed made Though it rarely was. It was where she studied, Talked to home, and where she’d Loved a couple of boys. No, it was just one She’d actually loved. She’d heard he wasn’t going Home, imagined him shacked up With the new girl, with canned goods, Condoms, and red wine. She might never see him again. No, that was too dramatic of her. She’d see him—in New York, L.A., D.C., or Louisville, some city Where theatre majors went To repot themselves, like new plants With not quite enough soil to grow Roots. She remembered now The morning she’d been late to warm-ups And her professor said a sharp Word—her mentor, she could use That term since it was over—and she sobbed In the bathroom. She remembered Her homesickness and then a spring Day, the lake offering its broad face to them all As they shed jackets and recognized Their friends arriving as at a grand Outdoor wedding, their sophomoric Marriage to this place. This coming Monday Would have been their showcase, She was meant to do Anne Frank’s Scene in the attic with Peter. LOL. She considered the fridge And threw out her favorite pesto, The portions of salmon she’d Frozen. She felt suddenly old, In the posture of her mother, Peering in and assessing, Tossing and wiping with good-smelling Spray her mother had in fact Bought her in September. Would she become a practical Person? She still didn’t keep A calendar but she knew the dates: Their play was meant to go up The first weekend in June, Commencement to have been The nineteenth. Was it just last Friday They were laughing in the rehearsal room And then crying because of the tender Monologue she’d written for her friend, Who already had her union card, and was Playing a female astronomer who’d lost Her mother to cancer . . . who, a hundred years ago, Was measuring the distance to the stars . . . She knew there were other griefs. Generations of them. This one was theirs. She shut the lights and locked The door. She had the video On her phone and would Show it to her parents. Related content: Sam Lansky on queer storytelling Why The Vanishing Half is timeless and urgent Brit Bennett and Emma Cline on love, literature, and losing your mind in the time of coronavirus