Alexandria Peary, editor
Publisher: Hobblebush Books
Available October 19 at Hobblebush Books
Are you turning to poetry (as a reader) (or as a writer) during the pandemic? This sequel anthology tracks what has happened in the Granite State since the first COVID Spring, published last year, in a way that maybe only poetry can accomplish. Line by line, image by image. Mirrored in the table of contents is the trajectory from the melancholy and depression of isolation in 2020 to the resurrection of hope in 2021.
These fifty-one poets from across the state have written with tremendous heart and skill, their craft evident in couplets gone awry (fitting for the time), in surreal and realistic imagery, in prose poems, in neologism and tanka, and in final lines and posed questions. Writers of all ages are featured, from a teenager to a 101-year old poet who recalls her father speaking at the dinner table about the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic.
Some poems are in response to the prompt-a-day invention strategies I designed to celebrate National Poetry Month in April 2021 in collaboration with NH Magazine—with ideas to springboard poems about the pandemic. (It can be difficult to create in real-time, let alone in a tumultuous time, and it was my wish that the prompts volunteer a way to the desk.) For a behind-the-scenes look at making an anthology during a pandemic, see publisher Kirsty Walker’s blog post.
Perhaps what I like best about this anthology is its lack of poetic distancing: our chairs are not spaced six or three feet apart. Instead, the book draws us together, with writers from above and below the Notches, from the Vermont border to the seacoast. Another point to celebrate: once again, Hobblebush Books is donating $2 from every copy of COVID Spring II sold to the NH Food Bank to support its efforts to help our fellow residents hardest hit by the pandemic.
Come meet the writers, publisher, and editor/state poet laureate!
Save the Date:
Reading sponsored by the NH Center for the Book and the State Library, held on Zoom on Sunday, November 7 from 6-7:15 PM with an introduction by Mary Russell, Director of the NH Center for the Book, and special guests. Register in advance for this meeting.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Additional readings by writers published in the anthology will be scheduled this fall. Stay tuned to my blog, NH Poet Laureate Blogspot.
