Preface : Here  are  words and  lines by  me ; Dr pragya suman, doctor and author  from India  wants  to  introduce the  background  of  my  creativity  craft  which  came  in a tiny  poetry  collection “ COVID  CUBE “. Beside  getting  face  to  face  the  tormentic  condition of  pandemic in  my  medical  profession , I also  scanned  the  scathing  acts  of  society, corruption  which  spiked  during  these calamities. I  also  got  infected  at  my  working place and  for  a  considerable period  I lived  in  home  quarantine , apart  from my family  members and  six  year daughter.

It  came  like a self  exploration  phase  and  in  stark  silence I felt  words dropping down  and  I collected  them  in various  genres  of  poetry. I  wrote  in verse, prose poem, visual poetry, minimalist poetry and concrete poetry.

“ COVID CUBE “  is  poetic documentation of  my pandemic  past peregrination. I wrote ten poems of multigenre, out if six are in word form and rest four are visual poetry.

Covid Cube

( 1 ) Corona’s language

The language spoken in the lab
Descended down
Upon the erected mango leaves
Of my fathers’s orchard
Coagulated there in protein shuttle


Corona hided heaped up in trans dictionary

And that day like almond seed scattered sharded
Out of pickled jar

I saw the letters got alienated
As every people in this pandemic
Letters liberated out of language

And stacked like draughtsman coin
Upon my auricle. I am still awaiting

let it in
Hear the voice of lord.

I decipher dear…!

( 2 )The Pandemic letter

The letters of my little
Littered in
Crayons colours

Are realistic
She put daily at doorstep
Of my quarantine room

Begin to fly like surreal–
And tinkles–
Dissecting the deafening silence.

( 3 ) Sisyphus would Smile

The bacilli of Algerian Oran
laid in

oblivion of ocean
has come in another way_

Trite of absurdism
has gone

in a meandering
vicious ray. But now this

covid 19 is spluttering–
the stone of the staggering silly Sisyphus


Bacilli beaches are basking

in naked beauty
of comely ” Camus “

I know Sisyphus would smile again.

( 4 ) The Hollow Cup

The guests are standing
in yard
holding a hollow cup.

I am in
with a coffee sachet.
A saturnine setting–

plundering the planet.

The virus breaks
its curse
locked in the plasma.

( 5 ) Coins of Corona

The parturient land and wrinkled hand smeared in sweat, takes one year to make mounds of lentils, veggies, rice and wheats, the democratic demons engulf in mere one gulp because they are balking in glory of an eagle emperor. The food given to medic servants shrivels in one fist, though they are in mountains on government paper . One Day I saw a lot of crows are appointed as admins in this dungeon, because they have developed eerie entrails with a silencer !
I read in biology book crows engulf without chewing, but crows of my country belch in a magical wand, so they don’t even make a sound . Chewing makes sound so they are silent engulfer not chewer.
Nowadays their nests are teeming in coins of corona.

( 6 ) I am covid positive

The dark hole was pale in self isolation and my virtual world got banished in a virus cube. Nowadays I live there and yes I sometimes rove my eyes left and right as vitreous fluid is stagnant in muddy iris. Night descends upon curved eyelids and I have for one month seen stars scuttering like skylarks here.
You know I am insomniac now and so I am a watcher in the playground. Being an audience to self makes a blue prism. The cold castle , though I am still pink there as autumn is my favorite . My fragile fingers stop between platter and mouth as they tuck in tremor. I am hungry now though my fridge is stuffed.

One day it happened two stars clogged in my dark hole and i saw a shriveled women was sitting in one dimension with wrapped face in pestle white towel.
Virus slept on my medic palms and i am covid positive now.

Dr Pragya Suman is a doctor by profession and an award winning author from India. She is posted now as Senior Resident in Shri krishna Medical College, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India. Writing is her passion which she inherited from her father. She also writes short stories and reviews which have been published in many magazines and anthologies. Surrealism, prose poetry, and free verse are her favourite genres. Recently she won the Gideon poetry award for her debut book Lost Mother . Dr Pragya Suman is Editor in Chief, Arc Magazine, India.

You can follow Dr Pragya on TwitterInstagram and Facebook!

Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.

Our Sponsors and Partners

Find Us!

Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
Stanford University

Address:
4th floor, Wallenberg Hall (bldg. 160)
450 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Stanford Mail Code: 2055