Poetry of the Pandemic
Poetry of the Pandemic (New experiments)
Over the last year in particular, I have found myself deeply questioning how I as an artist engage people in issues that are important but deeply unsettling. How do I engage people around global issues like the pandemic and climate change when sea level rise and flooding is a real and everyday threat?
I believe that fear immobilises and we simply cannot afford overwhelm and inaction. I attended the Climate Change and Consciousness Summit in Findhorn, Scotland last year and found myself expressing the enormity of emotion through verse.
Over the last few months I have found myself being inspired by conversations and interactions with people around me. Perhaps the limited nature of connection has made them more poignant and potent. A man saying ‘the climates gone square around here’ formed itself into a poem. A Presentation sister in the convent in Lixnaw talked so beautifully about the time BC- Before Covid.
I have found myself writing more that ever and am currenlty exploring ways of incorporating these words into the fabric of my work through performance, film, drawing and animation. This page is a work in progress for 2021. So far I have written over 30 songs and poems and am exploring ways of collaborating and getting them out in the world. If you would like me to send you some private links please contact me on info@lisafingleton.com
How do we love? How do we speak of things that we fear? How do we hear the things that we need to hear? This is especially challenging when there is so much divisiveness and fear mongering in the world? I wrote this song while working on The Floating Flagstone with Creative Ireland Kerry. How do we talk about important and difficult issues like climate change and biodiversity loss in the face of a global pandemic. I guess its important to keep asking the questions even if we don’t have the answers.
How do we love?
How do we speak of things that we fear?
How do we hear the things that we need to hear?
How do we choose a path that is new?
Without going astray and losing our way?
CHORUS
And how, how do we love?
O how do we love?
How do we love?
How do we speak when we are afraid?
How do we find the light in forests of dark and shade?
How do we love when hate is reigning from above?
O how do we love?
How do we love?
CHORUS
How to be kind, when moments of meanness fill our mind?
O how to be kind?
How to be kind?
How can we give so all others can thrive and live?
How can we love and how can we give?
CHORUS