You’ve seen it spreading rapidly through Facebook. Perhaps you’ve been infected yourself.
I’m not referring to Covid-19, but another kind of virus: the “Poetry Marathon” that travels with the mysterious hashtag of #PeetMeNotLeave”—promising participants eventual publication in something called “The Russian Almanac.” What's asked of poets who join in is that they share eight of their poems over eight days on Facebook and ask eight others to do the same.
Such chains appear frequently on FB, collecting everything from photos to favorite books. One reason the current iteration of the form has been greeted with such enthusiasm is because people get to share their own work with poets they admire.
Full disclosure: I bowed out, as I usually do from these chains. My own time is constrained, and I feel weird burdening others with such requests. But I‘ve seen poets actually asking for invitations to join in. So, I guess my own inhibitions speak more to personal nervousness than politeness.
In any case, this particular chain is producing some high-quality curation. I’ve heard people remark that the poems they’re reading as a result of #PeetMeNotLeave are at least as good the what’s in pubs out there—even counting established literary magazines. This isn’t surprising, as much of what appears was probably previously published.
Nevertheless, you can’t help wondering about the source of enthusiasm behind this particular chain.
I think a clue is found in the form of the chain. As it asks those who agree to be “infected” to spread the virus to eight others, you could interpret“#PeetMeNotLeave” as a poetic response to the pandemic itself. It alleviates some of the loneliness writers feel because they can no longer socialize at readings. Not only that, but it restores a bit of the agency that’s been robbed from people by the real disease. Poets create their own pandemic to counter the actual one.
The hive mind goes oracular
One of the fascinating aspects of the marathon is the way the poems shared have begun speaking symbolically about its purpose. It’s like watching the collective intelligence of the so-called hive mind become self-aware.
One example, titled “Cloven”, comes from Nada Gordon, urging us to put “the Pan back/in pandemic…” The poem admits that for now, this can only be accomplished by our imaginations. But it suggests an infection-free method for generating some desperately-needed wildness: poetic wordplay. Here’s a sample…
From Pan comes panic and
also pandemonium
of which we’ve had plenty,
but, regrettably, without
the party. Pan: spreading, global,
covering everything. Panties, panthers,
pantalets, panaceas, pantoums
(this isn’t one) and pandas.
Let’s put the Pan
back in pandemic, but only in our
fertile minds. IRL let’s just
don masks, and wash our grubby hands,
and touch no pangolins or bats, or civets,
and swear off also
at least for the time being
all wild and hairy
chimerical strangers.
Owning the numbers
Another example of this reclaiming of agency is a collaboration between Loren Goodman and Pirooz Kalayeh titled “Poem About Math” (shared by Goodman). The poem was previously published, but appearing in this context it gains new meaning.
When I read this poem, I thought of a comment the philosopher Alain Badiou made regarding the numerical: “we live in the era of number’s despotism”, he writes, where “the imperative must be ‘count!’”
Badiou is thinking of how numbers boss us around. We are necessarily obsessed with everything from health statistics, to the latest political poll numbers, to the value of the arts—and even personhood—measured in “likes”, if not sales data.
In the pandemic, numbers determine our fates with a new power. Each day we watch the stats charting ratios between infections and death. We view charts of peaks, plateaus and the flattening of curves. In response to such situations, Badiou wonders, “Isn’t another idea of number necessary, in order for us to turn thought against the despotism of number?”
Goodman and Kalayeh’s poem takes a witty step in this direction. In it, numbers, rather than threatening our survival, become friends and even lovers. Here’s an excerpt:
Most of my friends are numbers
43, 38, 26, 73, 19
Boom—you won the lottery
So I have a lot of friends now
Most of whom, as I said, are numbers
What I really like about numbers
Is what I really like about friends
You can put them together
Subtract them, multiply, divide
They can be rational
Or irrational, variables
Or become infinite
Even imaginary!
My first imaginary number
Came in darkness
I was practicing word problems
For four hours a day
At a secondhand desk
On the second floor
Of our apartment in
Lawrenceville, New Jersey
When I suddenly realized:
This is not math
This is love
Judging from the quality of poems people have shared, if the “Russian Almanac” ever appears it will be a great read. More than that, it will represent one way during this era by which the literary world (excuse the pun) is taking its temperature.
