Poet laureate Simon Armitage recalls heroic villagers of Eyam who quarantined themselves in 1665 to make sure no one else would catch their Black Death in his new coronavirus poem
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Heroic villagers who quarantined themselves amid the outbreak of the Black Death in the 17th century are at the heart of a new poem on the coronavirus by the poet laureate.
Simon Armitage’s latest work, Lockdown, references how people in the Derbyshire village of Eyam, who were affected by the plague in 1665, took a series of selfless steps to help minimise the spread.
The poem tells how those who were infected left money soaked in vinegar – which was believed to kill the disease – was placed by villagers in exchange for food and medical supplies.
Poet laureate Simon Armitage, pictured, references the selfless heroics of the villagers of Eyam during the Black Death in his new poem, Lockdown, about the coronavirus crisis
It touches on the tragic tale of two lovers – one from Eyam and one from a neighbouring village – who were no longer able to visit due to the plague, so met secretly at a distance, until one stopped appearing, having fallen foul of the disease.
Lockdown also references Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa’s work, Meghadūta, in which an exile uses a passing cloud to send a message of comfort to his wife.
‘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 landscapes and scenery he’s going to pass across. I thought it was a kind of hopeful, romantic gesture,’ Armitage told The Guardian.
He said he thought a message about patience, as opposed to the frantic way of life we are often used to, could be learned with regards to dealing with the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
Speaking about poetry more widely, he described it as ‘consoling’ in the way it urges people to focus and comtemplate issues.
‘Poetry is often about detail, even to the point where there’s just something sacramental in the ordinary descriptions of everyday life,’ he added.
‘It’s unlikely that there’s going to be a book of poems that are consolation against catastrophe, but just in poetry’s nature, in the way it asks us to be considerate of language, it also asks us to be considerate of each other and the world.
‘In the relationship with thoughtful language, something more thoughtful occurs.’