April First; Qotd
COVID-19 has single-handedly turned the world we all know on it's head, seemingly overnight. Everyday it seems the statistics get worse, the iron-shackles get tighter and hope becomes more and more scarce. I recently turned to one of my favourite poets in an attempt to find some words that could act like a lighthouse during this tsunami of a time. Frank O'Hara is not one of the better-known 20th century poets, but he is a founding father of the New York School of poetry which was deeply intertwined with the famed American painters of the 50s and 60s. His poetry, which is, in the words of Dan Chiasson of the New Yorker, renowned for being "sensual, aesthetic, intellectual" all at once, is often equally refreshing and depressing. So, as complexly layered as today's quotation is, I think, right now, we all can understand what O'Hara means.
"In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.” - Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency