Poems addressing the great isolation …

… “The beloved spectator who is myself”: Mary Jo Salter, Socially Distanced. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In Zoom Rooms, not all poems are about the Great Isolation of 2020, but many are, in one way or another. Covid-19 provided—and, in some places, still provides—a nutrient-rich petri dish for artists. The choice was this: cope or go crazy. Video chats and meetings suddenly proliferated. They were one way to cope, but they offered their own variants of misery. The collection’s first poem hints at the uncomfortable doubts that arose during the first year of the pandemic