Plague Poems

Reflections on the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, through a re-reading of Albert Camus’ great novel La Peste (1947).

Just before midnight on 25 March 2020 the country entered its first Covid lockdown, and for seven weeks in the great stillness of the deserted town the pandemic was everyone’s business. On the first morning, Brian Flaherty pulled Albert Camus’ La Peste from the bookshelf and started a daily routine: to read five pages, sample and shape into a poem that echoed our situation, and emailed to a friend.

Brian Flaherty is a poet librarian. He is co-founder of the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre with Michele Leggott, and was co-editor of the poetry journal Trout. Poems have appeared in Turbine, Best NZ Poems, Blackmail Press, Ika, Ka Mate Ka Ora, and Trout. Recordings of some of his poetry are online at Six Pack Sound.