POETRY IN PANDEMIC TIMES: MOURNING COLLECTIVE VULNERABILITY IN SUE GOYETTE’S SOLSTICE 2020. AN ARCHIVE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12795/REN.2022.i26.15Keywords:
Sue Goyette; COVID-19 pandemic; more-than-human world; trans-corporeality; vulnerability; mourning; resilienceAbstract
Focusing on Canadian poet Sue Goyette’s collection Solstice 2020. An Archive (2021), this article examines how dealing with the effects of a global pandemic through the medium of poetry can act as a powerful catalyst in raising awareness about collective vulnerability and mourning. During the locked-down days of 2020, Goyette felt it was her responsibility as a poet to find words to convey the sense of shared vulnerability people experienced in the face of a momentous event that confined them to their homes for days on end. Drawing on vulnerability theory, ecophilosopher David Abram’s thinking on the more-than-human world, Stacy Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeality, as well as on recent theorizations on the COVID-19 pandemic, this article argues that Goyette’s Solstice 2020 is a most interesting sociological document that represents collective vulnerability, testifies to the conundrums posed by the still ongoing pandemic, and makes visible the deep affinities between humankind and the more-than-human world.
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Accepted 2022-12-19
Published 2022-12-29
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