The Pandemic Lens^™

Just you wait, said my friends. Wait until your older kids have kids. You will adore being a grandmother! It’s one of the best times of your life. Well, it isn’t, it’s not even close. But the reason why has nothing to do with the hardy, round-eyed and utterly engaging little guy born to my…

Inevitably, the topic for me and my students in the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing turned to the effect of life on art – most particularly, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the American social justice uprising on the creation of art. Our own virtual classroom, where we communicated as little faces…

“Where there are humans, you’ll find flies. And Buddhas,” wrote the Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa. The pandemic seems to have sharpened the divide. Here are photographs of men sporting swastikas and toting long guns and Confederate flags, protesting government safety measures in Michigan’s state capitol. But here is the 28-year-old paramedic in Westchester, New York,…