A World Out of Reach: Dispatches from Life under Lockdown

233 Pages·2020·2.119 MB·English

by  Meghan O'Rourke

A World Out of Reach
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A W O R LD
O U T O F R EAC H
DISPAT CHE S FROM LIFE
UND ER L OCKDOWN
Selections from
The Yale Review’s
“Pandemic Files”
Edited and with an Introduction by
MEGHA N O’ROURKE
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
Copyright © 2020 by Yale University. Introduction copyright © 2020
by Meghan O’Rourke. All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for
educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail
[email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office).
Set in Gotham and Adobe Garamond types by Integrated Publishing
Solutions, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020942320
ISBN 978-0-300-25735-9 (paper: alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of those who lost their lives to COVID-19
and
to the essential workers who kept the world running during the pandemic
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Contents
Introduction
Meghan O’Rourke xi
Do You Know Alex Oreille
Katie Kitamura 1
MARCH
Cannon Fodder
Laura Kolbe 9
There’s a Sickness Outside
Nitin Ahuja 13
Medicine’s Innovation Problem
Rena Xu 19
March 11
Alicia Mireles Christoff 23
The Lice
Miranda Featherstone 25
Spring
Maya C. Popa 32
CONTENTS
APRIL
Memories of West Fourth Street
Major Jackson 35
The Law of Salus Populi
John Fabian Witt 36
Pandemic Inequality
Octávio Luiz Motta Ferraz 41
The Pandemic in Inupiaq
Joan Naviyuk Kane 46
A Nurse Comes to Brooklyn
Nell Freudenberger 52
Sirenland
Briallen Hopper 60
The White String
Brandon Shimoda 66
MAY
Trading Riffs to Slay Monsters
Yusef Komunyakaa and Laren McClung 73
Leaving Yale for the Coronavirus Epicenter
Eric O’Keefe-Krebs 76
Welcome to Zoom University
Sean Lynch 81
Reading The Decameron through the Lens of COVID-19
Millicent Marcus 86
viii
CONTENTS
A Commencement Deferred
Meghana Mysore 91
History Is Another Word for Trauma
Rachel Jamison Webster 97
The Children Know
Emily Ziff Griffin 103
Prelude
Rowan Ricardo Phillips 108
Get the Shovel
Kathryn Lofton 110
Two Poems: Provision, The Hour between Dog and Wolf
Monica Ferrell 116
The Jail Crisis
Russell Morse 119
Coronavirus and the Danger of Disbelief
Randi Hutter Epstein 132
Invisible Kingdoms
Noreen Khawaja 139
JUNE
The Trees Witness Everything
Victoria Chang 147
How I Became a Prophetess
Joyelle McSweeney 150
ix