We are excited to present the first poem in DCTRENDING’s collaboration with Mike Maggio’s COVID Poetry and Art Project: “Lines” by Bonnie Naradzay. Learn more about this project here!

Lines (A Pantoum)

by Bonnie Naradzay

This has been done before, standing in line for a long time.           

Think of Soviet women who queued for hours for bread.                 

And I have learned about the lines of the Great Depression:          

men lined up for mind-numbing jobs at assembly lines.                  

Think of Soviet women who stood for hours for bread                  

or Akhmatova outside the prison waiting for news of her son.       

Here, men lined up for mind-numbing jobs at assembly lines.       

These days some have it easy – food deliveries, yoga online.          

Akhmatova outside the prison waited with women for news          

and the chance to send a loaf of bread, or a note, inside.                 

These days some have it easy – food deliveries, yoga online.          

Still, Camus said the plague is within us, here to stay.                   

I have learned about the lines of the Great Depression                   

where hope envisions a loaf of bread, a note from inside.                

Camus wrote that the plague is within us, here to stay,                  

as it has always done: waiting in line for a long time.   

[“Lines” was originally published on New Verse News and subsequently on Mike Maggio’s website. You can find the original COVID project post here.]

Chatting with the poet

Can you tell us about this piece and what led you to create it? How has the pandemic influenced your writing?

The lines started forming in my mind for this pantoum when I was feeling ridiculous and frivolous for standing in line at Trader Joe's to buy frozen gyozas and broccoli.  I started thinking of lines of men looking for work during the Depression, Anna Akhmatova, in line outside the prison, long bread lines.  For a while I was reading and writing extensively about earlier plagues (Defoe, Plutarch's Pericles, Camus....).  Life seems more intense and more surreal now.  I seem to have more time for creativity (learning Irish fiddle tunes, writing, working with mosaics), but opportunities for creativity alternate with feelings of dread and despair.

What role do you think the arts play in times of turmoil and uncertainty?

The arts are crucial now for the crises now (health threats, civic values, catastrophic climate change).  And people are responding through the creative use of technology to bring the arts to a wider audience, since distance has been erased these days through online offerings.  We are together, but in different ways that are sometimes disconcerting and other times overwhelmingly heartening.

What are you viewing, reading, watching, and/or listening to these days?

These days I am reading Homer's Odyssey (because of a seminar I'm in this semester) and The Iliad (with a reading group) and Christ Stopped at Eboli and Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars. I just finished watching all 12 episodes of I, Claudius (many parts seem eerily prescient today).  Last night I saw a performance from San Francisco on YouTube of King Lear.  Suddenly everything is available online from all over.

Do you have a favorite D.C. area writer or artist?

Many, including Phyllis Mayes, a visual artist, David Keplinger, a poet who teaches at American University, and Solveig Eggerz, a novelist. My favorite DC-area writer is Sarah Yerkes, who published her first book of poetry at the age of 101. She is in the monthly poetry "salon" that I have led for years at Ingleside Retirement Center in Washington D.C. Our group continues to meet monthly (over ZOOM since April), and Sarah and the others continue to write poetry.

Anything else that you want to say?

I am grateful to Mike Maggio for all he does with innovative projects and for connecting us with your initiative!

About the poet

Bonnie Naradzay earned an M.A. in English literature from Harvard University (which included her taking the course “The King James Bible as English Literature,” taught by Robert Lowell). For years, she has led poetry workshops at a day shelter for homeless people (Miriam’s Kitchen), and at a retirement center (Ingleside), both in Washington D.C. In 2017 she earned a master’s degree in liberal arts at St. John’s College in Annapolis.

See Bonnie read her work in 2020 with other local poets as part of the Takoma Park Third Thursday poetry series: reading available online here. This particular night’s theme was “Confronting Difficult Truths.”