The Great Empty - Paperback

by Gary Duehr (Author)

During the first year of the pandemic, I wrote one poem a day and posted them on Facebook and Instagram, as a way to provide a historical diary of the times and to connect to a larger community in the midst of isolation. The poems are influenced by classic haiku images as well, such as falling snow, the trill of birds, and intimate daily life. The scope of the verse ranges from mundane observations to the larger political sphere, even touching on the 1918 flu epidemic. The Great Empty is written in renga, a style of ancient Japanese verse like an extended haiku. The end of one poem links to the start of the next, as when they were created as a party game.