68 poems written over 68 days at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City

Poems for a Pandemic was born out of a chance moment at the height of the Covid pandemic in New York, when I looked out my kitchen window and saw my neighbor peering over the edge of his building—a solitary figure in a world of quiet, a world that had shrunk in many ways but still felt overwhelming and scary. What began as a whim to capture a moment in image and verse turned into ritual, a daily practice that would stretch through early June 2020, when New York officially lifted the stay-at-home order.

I decided to publish Poems for a Pandemic to keep the conversation going. This book is an invitation to remember, to make space for what we’ve learned and what we are still learning. It is an invitation to pause in our return to busyness and distractions, to recall the rumbling of feelings and what we heard in the stillness. It is an invitation to make room for grief, to acknowledge that we are people who’ve been changed by loss. It is an invitation to move forward with wisdom, grace, patience, and hope.

I welcome you to join this conversation.

— Eva Ting

Image: Mustard Seed, Faith Hampton