Zoom and the Power of Poetry

Melinda Palacio

 On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of being the main speaker for the Santa Barbara Association of Women in Communication. It was one of the friendliest groups I’ve spoken to and I felt very comfortable. An overall fun and pleasant Covid-zoom-speaking gig. It helped that I’m also in the communications field. Some of the women knew me from my news reporting days in Santa Barbara. I was pleasantly surprised by my old editor from the Goleta Valley Voice. The subject was the power of poetry for communicators, a subject I enjoy talking about. 

The only glitch happened a half hour before the event, when I realized my trusty zoom room was turning very dim. The event began at 5:30 pm and most other zooms I’ve attended over the past year have happened around or before noon. A small camping lantern did the trick. 

I’ll make the main takeaway of my talk easy to find: Poetry is a powerful and useful tool during this time of Covid isolation. It’s fair to say that Covid has been good for poetry. More and more people are turning to poetry to ease their loneliness. That our President chose youth poet Amanda Gorman as the inaugural poet also adds to the sudden buzz in poetry. Of course, as a poet, I’m thrilled that more people are giving poetry its due and are reading more poetry and want to incorporate poetry in their lives. Poetry restores play and whimsy, while allowing the poet to take a stand for principles and believes. For those who are on lockdown by themselves, poetry can be that non-judgmental friend that empowers you. So many people around the world are suffering from depression. Poetry can restore some of that lost normalcy by letting others know that they are not alone. If you are simply wanting to discover more about yourself. Make the pen and page your friend and you’ll have another friend in form of a poem, a Covid party. 

I also learned that my talking about pen and paper dates me. Someone asked what are the best tools for writing poems. I held up the pen in my hand. I quickly help up my phone and showed that writing notes, a text to yourself or a voice memo was also a good tool to start writing your poem. The poem is your friend and it doesn’t care what close it wears whether a blank page or a blank screen. Your job is to fill it. Write whatever comes to mind, get all the ideas on the page and then go back and shape your poem. Read it out loud. Which words sing? Which words get in the way and need to go? Cross out them out. Rewrite and rewrite. Read and repeat. Let the poem sit and marinate. Maybe go back to it in a week, maybe not. Know it’s there to revisit and spend time with, a friend, your poem. Share it or keep it for yourself. I’ll share my pandemic poem with you. 

This Poem Is Not a Prayer

(published in When the Virus Came Calling Covid-19 Strikes America, September 2020)

This poem cries on an empty street corner in blind daylight.

This poem doesn’t want a helping hand for fear of contamination. 

This poem loves isolation, but despises the box she’s confined to. 

This poem listens to finches, when they stop singing, she awaits a murder of crows.

This poem doesn’t want wide-eyed strangers to feel sorry for her, to tilt their heads as if they cared about what’s between the lines.

This poem wears an N-95 mask over her nose and mouth. The mask stolen from a young buck. 

This poem plays pandemic drinking games. 

This poem is not a prayer.

This poem sits six feet away from you, maybe six miles to be safe. 

This poem wears a tattered dress over bruised knees, her torn white-stockinged feet stuffed into scuffed black patent leather shoes.

This poem washes her hands while singing Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday Dear Dirty Hands, Happy Birthday to Me. Estas son las mañanitas.

This brackish green brown poem lives in a muddy pond, deaf to bird calls, she is indifferent to the lily eaten by golden frogs. 

This poem continues to cry alone, laughs when told touching is a thing of the past.

This poem says goodbye too many times and wonders when she may take your blue hand. 

This poem dies with you.

Covid Year Two, the Inaugural Edition 2021

 Melinda Palacio

Hello 2021.

For all of us who voted for Biden, the new year didn’t start until Wednesday when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn in. I’m feeling all kinds of fuzzy and warm, perhaps warm enough to offer Tio Bernie some comfort. With the reverence of the transfer of power came the playful Bernie Sanders memes. I think we all needed to let out a sigh of relief. I know I’ve been holding my breath because tRump refused to concede, what a sore loser. We may not have been able to elect Hillary to the White House, but we witnessed the swearing in of California’s own, Kamala Harris as Vice President of the United States of America. 

I’ll admit that for all the joy of the momentous occasion, some lingering effects of trauma over the past four years remain. The pandemic hasn’t magically disappeared and an insane amount of people have died due to Covid. While President Biden is on operation clean up, it may be months until a vaccine finds its way into my arm. Right now, Santa Barbara feels like a small island where supplies are hard to come by. It doesn’t help that Santa Barbara received a botched batch of doses, and not enough doses; every newsletter about Covid vaccines I’ve received state that there are no more appointments available for those in the 75 or older tier. I’m in the last group of adults that will be vaccinated. Who knows when that will be? Even though I hate needles and hospitals, I’m eager to get immunized against the virus. 

Even with the good news of a new administration, Covid did not take a back seat, but was front and center in the representation of flags for all the people who have perished in this country. Although I feel a sense of relief, I continue to have strange dreams and am often awakened by the sound of owls hooting back and forth to each other. If only I could decipher their message. Perhaps they are trying to tell me not to worry so much? A tall order when you think about the possibility of insiders who may have helped the insurrectionists with their coup d’état, it’s easy to be in a constant state of worry. Senators who continue to stand by Trump and the violence he incited should be removed from office. All of the people who supported them remain amongst us, some quietly going about their business, angry or deflated, but dissatisfied either way. This storm has been brewing for four years, thanks to Trump fanning the flames of hate. Videos and selfies of the mob showed a well-rehearsed group who felt at home storming our capitol. Some had recently received tours from Senators, even though tours should have been cancelled due to Covid. Some of the co-conspirators are refusing to leave their guns at home. Thanks to chatter from these fringe groups the entire nation was put on high alert, as if Covid lockdown weren’t enough. However, the largest military presence at the inauguration did not dampen the celebration of a new dawn. As inaugural poet, Amanda Gorman suggests, it’s best to step into this new era unafraid. Perhaps, my owls are telling me to have no fear and return to poetry.  Gorman recited: “The new dawn blooms as we free it/For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”