‘A very healing experience’
Anthology reflects on life in a pandemic
Courtney Bates-Hardy was not sure what to expect when she began going through poems by Saskatchewan writers depicting life during the pandemic.
As associate poetry editor on a new anthology titled “apart: a year of pandemic poetry and prose,” Bates-Hardy started out curious, eager to see how other writers had felt about and processed the changes COVID-19 brought to their lives.
The pieces did much more than just satiate her curiosity, however; they helped her process her own grief.
“I actually found it a very healing experience to know that so many other people were going through and feeling a lot of the same things about the pandemic and that they were able to also find some hope,” she said. “It was a real gift to edit these poems.”
Bates-Hardy lost her grandmother near the start of the pandemic. A close family friend later passed away from COVID-19.
Reading through the poems, Bates-Hardy learned how the pandemic had shaped others — some used their pieces to process their grief, some shared about missing experiences previously taken for granted and some spoke of picking up new hobbies like making bread or spending more time outdoors.
Through many of them was woven a thread of hope and resilience — a theme she hopes will have the same impact on other readers.
“I’m hoping that they have the same experience that I did in working on the anthology,” Bates-Hardy said.
“There’ll be a few pieces that’ll make you cry and a few pieces that’ll make you laugh, and by the end of it, I think they’ll be able to take some hope with them from the writing.”
Recently published by the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, an online launch is being held for the anthology on Wednesday evening via Zoom. The book features poems, short stories and essays contributed by more than 70 Saskatchewan authors.
Yolanda Hansen, program manager for the SWG, said the book was born out of the organization’s desire to help support its members when its regular programming had to be halted or moved online.
She knew authors would appreciate an opportunity to share their writing. A call went out, asking local authors to share their pandemic perspectives in whatever genre they chose.
“I’m so pleased with it,” Hansen said. “It’s a really great collection that represents how people felt during the pandemic. Our writers did a really good job of capturing what life was like.”
The anthology’s managing editor, Dave Margoshes, described the pieces as moving “from darkness to light” in feeling as readers make their way through the book.
While all approximately 200 pieces in the book are centred around the pandemic, Margoshes said no two are alike.
He hopes the book comes to be a resource people use to look back decades from now to recall what the pandemic was really like, calling it a “scrapbook of life in the pandemic.”
“I think that people are going to be talking about this for years and telling their grandchildren about it. People who are young now, 50 years from now, will be telling their grandchildren about it. And this book, I think, I hope it will endure,” he said.