Tags: In The Time Of COVID

Submitted by Andrew Simmons 

“Nouning, March 2020” by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor Comments by Wei-Yi Lee https://districtlit.com/2020/05/21/cahnmann-taylor/   N. The process of turning verbs and adjectives into nouns, also called nominalization.   What an awesome spread!   Said at weddings, even funerals,   of butter, gossip,   wings, two facing   newspaper pages. What spreads.   We said this for uncountable   nouns: acres, days, contagious   smiles, laundered tablecloths,  …

Performed by Amanda Tipton

By Elliot Shaw   In the classic poem “To a Mouse,” Robert Burns tells us that the best laid plans often go askew, leaving us to deal with nothing but grief and pain. But what he doesn’t tell us is that skewed plans can sometimes be better than carefully formulated ones. Of course, there are times when our hoped-for designs on the future truly were the ideal scenarios; there are times we are left with only misfortune. And sometimes these…

By Lianna Arcelay   My peepers open, mind unrested, head slightly pounding, to the sunlight creeping through unopened blinds. The sunlight is offensive: I refuse to acknowledge it, defiantly rolling over. I sleep on – off to deny the day, willing my body up at around two in the afternoon on a good day, four o’clock on a bad day. I am submerged in a suffocating loneliness: both outdoors and indoors have become symbolic of the same emotionality,…

Picture submitted by Benjamin Houser

Dr. Dorothy Figueira performs Bach's Goldberg Variation #10 on the organ.

By Anqi Liu   I was lying on the couch enjoying the last warmth in late autumn a heavy somnolence descended on me.   An unknown period of time passed I woke up from the darkness full of chagrin   it's like sometimes I dreamt about my dad, and the moment I woke up, the consciousness was in a trance the emotions were all numb.   can I go back to that dream?

Original author: Hu Xudong Translated by Willy Du   —To Ah Zi   Several days ago, like two idle supervisors, we constantly monitor squirrels’ collective labors on the side of the road: Every morning, they’d the good weather take, grain by grain from the trees to the earth below. In the evening, with their paws, they’d the tranquility of the town break, and teeth it up the trees. You’d imagine that the squirrels also delight at the sight of two…

By Masaki Mori   Our current, perpetual nemesis Wields invisibility and silence To take the disposable body And shrivel the mind dry Depriving our voice of the last breath In isolation, unheard, uncared for, No utterance signals viral dominance   Stretch our being, in and out, Stir the air with our expression As a sign of life for co-motion Modest, yet resilient to withstand The infinitesimally insidious This is our call to arms from lonely…