Vaccine Verse: Poems from June 2020 to May 2021

On 11 March, 2020, Andrew Simms created a WhatsApp group. He and his fellow poets and co-conspirators, Nicky Saunter and Nick Robins, decided to call it, with admirable clarity, One Poem a Week.

Each of the friends posted one poem every week, on a theme randomly chosen by one of them, a theme often sparked by the news of the day, or the time of the year - and sometimes both. It was a way of staying connected - with each other, and with the wider world - during those crazy months of the Covid pandemic when everything was going pear-shaped and viral. When I was added, a few months into the project, the first image that arrived was a photograph of bright green acorns. "Turn your back for a second and these

are everywhere..." said Andrew, with a surprise- face emoji. To which Nick shot back a poem, 'Hum', punctuated liberally with emojis of his own, featuring sizzling sunbeams, syncopated galaxies, and the skitter of beeswings. They were on a roll. The rolling and scrolling kept on, gathering momentum, as this renga of renegades passed the poetic baton to and
fro, round and round.

What grew from these green acorns was a project that has, til date, produced a small forest: hundreds of poems, images, jokes, and - yes - emojis, that together have created a sort of tapestry, not quite Bayeux in its scope but like it, conveying a vivid snapshot of lived experience. You will find in both the first selection (entitled Plague Poems) and this current crop, a slice of the times: political events, seasonal shifts, the upswing and downturn of moods, personal and societal. Many of the poems deal directly with the stark contemporary reality of climate change and ecosystem collapse. This forms the sort of tone, the background hum, the energy behind the poems themselves: it is the colour, or ground, against which everything is set - like the pale linen upon which the needleworkers of Bayeux embroidered their coloured yarns.

But the overall result is far from despairing or dark. You will find here laughter, surprise, joy even. There is in this collection of poems a reflection of the variety of responses we all have to these crises, as we swing between hope and despair, resilience, anger, resistance, love. And always the sharp reminder of nature's continuance, her ever-changing, ever-generous sharing of beauty and abundance - against all odds.

So, defrost your soul. Discover what opens hearts as easily as pub doors. Kick up your heels in glorious
bovine glee. Build a podium wide enough for all to share.

In other words: read on.

Anita Roy
April 2023