In difficult times, literature can be a respite or a road map, fiction can offer a way forward or a means of escape, and poetry can be a pronouncement or a poultice.
This is what the Paris Review (233) editorial note by Emily Nemens reminds us.
It is to literature that we turn. In need of connection, we search for the familiar and seek commonality. What brings us together until we can be together again is finding what we have in common, uniting against injustice and discrimination and stopping to listen to and observe what is happening in the world.
What we are living – and dying – through now is also made a little more bearable by connecting with nature. This week I visited a garden centre for the first time in over a year. It was full of people – many with masks – looking for inspiration to create edible and ornamental additions to their indoor and outdoor living spaces.
Looking for beauty. Finding objects that seem useful and promise to bring joy. I found myself veering towards bright colours, searching for light. I picked out a large cerise pot into which I planted Kale and Black Cabbage. All with the knowledge that from nourishing and caring comes flourishing and blooming.
Shauna Gilligan Writer 