At The Bare Life Review, as we pause with the rest of you to shelter in place, our thoughts turn increasingly to the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic on artists all over the globe. Of course, we fear especially for those most vulnerable among us: the stateless, the unsheltered, those pushed already to the borders of society and now pushed further by the hardening of those borders.
To help us make sense of the crisis, and to conceive a response, we asked our family of contributors to submit original poems and essays: reflections on the politics of pandemic, thoughts on its impact on their countries of birth, or simple dispatches from their own home confinement. Beginning this Friday, April 10, on The Latest, we will be publishing their responses, which reflect the same diversity of perspective and tone that these authors have brought to our pages. Taken together, we hope their contributions may form an artifact of this strange and difficult time, testifying to our shared vulnerability and resilience.
Entries in this special series will be published twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays. We hope you will join us in reading.