In July 2020, I composed “Lockdown Letters,” drawing on email messages I had written to friends in the early months of the pandemic. I wanted to write something about the virus while experiencing it, and realized I had been writing about the public health emergency for months. I admire the work of Robert Lowell in his Notebook or History and the Maximus letters of Charles Olson. In that spirit, I began making irregular sonnets, a long sequence. Given the randomness of the virus in finding victims, I leaned into form for the poems even if not keeping to strict construction. Thanks to Kevin Gallagher at SpoKe, a Boston-based poetry annual, for taking four of the poems.
