Lockdown

<p>Art meets historical archive in Ellen Austin-Li's second poetry collection <em>Lockdown: Scenes from Early in the Pandemic.</em> These poems center around life during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic: the mysterious virus as myth & fairytale the first-responder husband a son in quarantine New York City's devastating refrigerated trucks as makeshift morgues. Grief fear and nostalgia for our relatively carefree pre-COVID lives (oh / let us slow dance to a fast song / because we can) weaves a fabric that memorializes this international trauma. This book shows us that learning to live with fear and uncertainty uncovers the resilience we often don't know we have: So you walk outdoors toward the blossoms / And the monster loses its hold in the trees /And you stand beneath the pink and crimson / Its scent-feast you pray will cleanse and release /As the petals rain down in a shower.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>