Saturday, 9 October 2021

Lockdown by simon armitage

 Lockdown 

              Simon Armitage


Poet laureate 

Simon armitage is an English poet, playwright and novelist who was appointed poet laureate on 10 may 2019. He also professor of  poetry at the University of leeds. 

 



Traditions of poet laureate 

The title of poet laureate was first  granted in England in the 17th century for poetic excellence.  The tradition of a poet acting in service to a British sovereign is a long one, but the original of the modern post can be traced to Ben jonson, who was granted a pension by James1 in 1616. After 1668 the laureate ship was recognized as an established royal office to be filled automatically when vacant.


About  Lockdown 

His poem about coronavirus crisis. Lockdown, first published in the Guardian, moves from the outbreak of bubonic plague in Eyam in 17th century, when a bale of cloth from london  brought fleas carrying the plague to the Derbyshire village, to the epic poem Meghaduta by the sanskrit poet kalidas.






The poem was also  influenced by a scene in Meghaduta in which an exile sends reassuring words to his wife in the Himalayas  via a passing cloud.

"The cloud is convinced to take the message because the yaksha, which  I think  is sort of an attendant spirit to a God of wealth, tells him what amazing  landscape  and scenery he's going to pass across.  I thought  it was a kind of hopeful, romantic gesture," said Armitage. 

He thought  there was a message to be learned "about taking things easy and being patient and trusting the earth and maybe having to come  through  this slightly slower, and wiser, at the other end -given that one thing that's accelerated the problem is our hectic lives and our proximitie and the frantic ways we go about  things."

It has a grit as well as a sense of optimism and belief. "I didn't want to just write a dirge or an Elegy, but I didn't want to write a  trivial bit of fluff either,"  said Armitage. "It is something  I am very proud of. I I did feel a kind of pressure to produce something, which is not usually how I work, and it took a long while to pull it all together. "


Armitage, who is at home with his family  in west yorkshire, said that "as the Lockdown became more  apparent  and it felt like the restrictions were closing in, the plague in Eyam  became more and more  resonant" to him.

His poem references Eyam boundary stone, which contained holes that the quarantined villagers would put their money in to pay for provisions from outside, and then fill with vinegar in the hope it would cleanse the coins. It also  touches on the doomed romance between a girl who lived in Eyam  and a boy outside  the village who talked to her from a distance, until she stopped coming. 

Poetry is "by definition consoling" because  "it often asks us just to focus and think and be contemplative,"  said Armitage. 
 

Lockdown set to music 
    Florence Pugh and Simon Armitage record   Lockdown poem together 
Collaboration is a recording of the poet laureates  Lockdown set to music, with proceeds donated to the domestic abuse charity refuge  


Simon Armitage, the poet laureate, has joined forces with the actor
Florence Pugh for a charity release of his poem about  coronavirus crisis.  Lockdown, first published in March, has been set to music and will be sold to help raise money  for the domestic abuse charity  refuge.

Armitage has been making track of his poems with collaborators Richard Walter's and Patrick j Pearson, collectively  known as LYR, for a couple of years. 

The track was recorded  remotely during the current Lockdown. " we are very familiar  with  collaboration at distance," Armitage said. " we Have spent time together in studios but we are more used to putting things  together over the internet so this was something we were able to assemble fairly quickly. "

Armitage, a former probation officer, said he was proud that the money would be going to refuge. " one subtext of the poem is the difficulty of communication during stressful situations.  We have been especially conscious of the rise in domestic abuse cases and violence against  women and children  during the coronavirus  restrictions."

The response to it has been emblematic of a wider interest in poetry during  the Lockdown.  "I think people have turned to poetry, not just writing it but reading it...it can be something to focus on and hold everything together  for a while." 


Impact of Lockdown on human behaviour 

It's  been months that all of us have been confined to our homes.  The way we are operating is very different from what has been happening for years. Covid-19 has left a significant  impact on human behavior.
 
The Lockdown restrictions and highly contagious virus have got the entire world 🌎  to a standstill. If we look at the positive  side, people are now able to spend a reasonable amount of time with their families 👪. The positive  and homely environment has got a good change in human behaviour. 

"There are always two sides to a coin" 


And this Lockdown also has a negative impact on human behaviour. 

There has been an increase in domestic  violence cases,  suicide, people losing their jobs, lack of supply of basic needs, people getting stuck at the work locations,  travel ban, closure of schools, and loss of lives due to pandemic.


The Covid-19 has led to a psychological imbalance of people.  The layoffs and salary cuts increasing with each passing day led to people suffering  from depression  and fear of losing financial stability. The migrant workers lost their  jobs, could not return to their homes  and were devoid of necessities. 

Closure of schools will have a considerable impact  on  the child's  growth in the long run. The child stuck at home, with no exposure to new environment and new people. There are no physical and other such activities that help in a child's development. Some children  have also been away from  their parents due to the Lockdown restrictions.

Nothing can replace a human life. As days passed  by, more people are losing their lives. The highly contagious virus has  wrecked havoc. There have been many cases where a COVID positive was left alone with no family or friends  support. A person committed suicide because her family did not wlecome her after successful  being treated for covid. This pandemic has affected in many ways. We need to focus on mental health and  motivation  the people  around  us to be positive. 



Many other people  wrote creative  poem in Lockdown, like 

Dev joshi wrote  the poem about Lockdown 


Parul khakkar 

Parul khakkar is gujarati  writes. Devotional poems of radha- krishna. Recently, when the  bodies of people dying of covid were found floating in the Ganga, it pained her so much that she wrote  her now viral 14- line poem titled 'shave vahini Ganga' and shared it on her  social media account. 




Now the poem is being translated into many other languages.  But first, a group of patriarchal  social groups  have resorted to trolling with vulgar comments. Parul  khakkar said that the words that come out of the depths of hurt, as well as from a truly happy  mind have a lot of power. 

Parul khakkar words  will hopefully create more awareness  of the issues in how this pandemic has been handled, and need to shared even more widely.


Wind up 


We are in difficult time!  We are on dire need of such poems which  may inspire us to be together rather than separated.

      "સાહિત્ય સમાજ નો અરીસો છે."

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