Poetry / Nicholas Montemarano
:: C‑Word ::
No Covid poems!
- From the submission guidelines of the [Redacted] Review
Dear editors, would you mind clarifying something
for me? Do you mean that poems that use the c-word
or are about the c-word will be rejected unread?
Would the other c-word (corona) be permitted?
I’ve written dozens of poems about my mother dying,
but rarely use the c-word, more often the v-word (virus)
or p-word (plague). If I send you a poem that includes
the c- or v- or p-word, would you place me on a list
of writers whose poems you would never consider?
Are there other c-words I should avoid such as cancer?
In your current issue, I read poems about climate crisis,
colonialism, capitalism, coulrophobia, and a cento
about chestnut trees. Poems about being a bottom,
about bottoming out, and two odes to big butts.
A poem about divorce, of course, and late-life
sexual awakening. Some, I must admit, made no sense
(no offense). And so many that reference Greek mythology.
I never knew how many poets have been to Paris
and like to drop in phrases in français, and quite a few
shout-outs, first-name only, to other poets, like Walt or Emily,
as if poetry is a party only other poets are invited to.
If I were a poetry editor, I wouldn’t close a single door,
not even to dead grandmothers and dead dogs.
No subject would be banned. No letter, no word.
Poems in your current issue include the words
clit and cunt, and I have no problem with that. Let the tent
be as big as possible. Better yet, let there be no tent.
You’ve already written my name on a list,
and that’s for the best. Maybe you’ve read 1.2 million poems
about the c-word, and you’re exhausted, you’re ready
to return to normal—poems about cardinals
and calla lilies. Anyway, I’d wanted to send you a poem
about the word expired, which was my mother’s
discharge status from the hospital where she lived
the last two weeks of her life. Her cause of death was
pneumonia and acute respiratory failure due to Covid.
Her heart, however, if I may use that word, her heart
was stable in size.
.
:: Plague Chorus ::
So sorry to hear. Keeping you in our thoughts. May her memory be a blessing. We left a meal on your porch. Heart emoji. Return the bowl whenever. Just checking in, thinking about you, no need to reply. Love to the fam. How’s your dad holding up? Hey! What a bitch of a year. Catch me up, k! Sorry to bug, when you get a chance, please sign the attached form, thanks. Feel free to say no, but we’d love you to serve on the subcommittee. You probably don’t remember me, but I’d be so grateful if you could write me a recommendation. Just bring a salad, that would be great. Did you see the eclipse? Have you watched Succession? So good! Did you hear Joan Didion died? Did you hear about John Madden? Celebrities die in threes—who’s next? Are you bringing your kids to the protest? Was that an earthquake? Oh no— Betty White! Broken heart emoji. Sorry, we need an extra meeting. Would you mind drafting the proposal? I know we’re all running on fumes. How’s your dad? Did you watch the Steelers? Have you read Middlemarch? Give me a call, need a favor. Don’t mean to be a pest, but the report was due yesterday. Finally— spring! Just back from Costa Rica, OMG, you have to go! God, I’m so sorry, I just heard. As if you haven’t been through enough. Sending hugs. Two broken heart emojis. It goes without saying, we’ll finish the report, just send what you have. I can’t imagine, we left a casserole on your porch, may his memory be a blessing, anything you need, hang in there, no words. Hi, hope you’re doing well! Just wanted to remind you, my letter of recommendation is due tomorrow. Thank you so much, I’ll let you know how it goes!
From the writer
:: Account ::
After my mother died from Covid in 2021, I published a memoir, If There Are Any Heavens, that focuses on the three weeks leading to her death. During the Q&A session after a reading I gave at George Washington University, a man in attendance asked, “But where’s the rage?”
His question caught me off guard. I pointed out to him several moments in my memoir that have some bite, but I agreed that the primary emotional register of the memoir is not rage or even anger. Confusion and fear and disbelief and deep sadness—and love.
The man who had asked the question seemed to be in touch with his rage—not at me, but at the pandemic that had taken my mother and millions more. It was as if he had asked, “Where’s my rage in your memoir?”
For the past few years, I have been working on a poetry manuscript called Plague Songs. It includes elegies, of course, and poems more generally about plagues, and it repurposes some of the language of the pandemic, and the process has surprised me in many ways. One day, I read the submission guidelines for a journal I will not name, and they included the directive: “No Covid poems!”
Well, now I had an answer to the man’s question at my reading! Here came my rage (of course, it has always been there). I channeled it into new poems. I had to ask myself some interesting questions: What does it mean to write an angry elegy? What does a poem need to do to prevent it from being only an angry rant? How can such a poem begin with anger but move toward something else, something surprising—love, empathy, heartbreak, even dark humor?
I hope that’s what these poems have achieved.
Nicholas Montemarano is the author of five books, most recently a memoir, If There Are Any Heavens (Persea Books, 2022). Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, Bennington Review, Copper Nickel, and The Best American Poetry 2025. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, he is the Alumni Professor of Creative Writing and Belles Lettres at Franklin & Marshall College.