Pandemic Evolution: Poets Respond to the Art of Matthew Wolfe

Welcome to the mental attic space of 46 humans during a very difficult time in their lives, a global pandemic. This is a space filled with images and poetry. It is a collaboration without a detailed blueprint, yet it grew, morphed, and evolved for nearly a year, even as a virus stunted much of the world. This space is now a testament. It is flower bud waiting to bloom in the hands of anyone willing to read, look, and ponder its petals. The miracle? It creates a different blossom for each person who opens the covers of this simple book. It began when an addled artist decided to mark the first days of the natural Covd-19 catastrophe by taking a single photo each day after the pandemic was officially declared. After each shoot, he would post the photo on the Internet and assumed that would be the end of it. Enter one visionary publisher who saw a book, a different sort of book. She imagined a volume of poets with the daily images, and, sent out a call for poems inspired by the photographs. Dozens of poets from the United States, Canada, India, and Wales dutifully sat down, added their visions to the photos, and created new dimensions for the collection of images. In the end, 44 poets brought their own souls to bare on the visual bulletin board, as it were. And now, we welcome you to enter this space, light a candle, and pick out that flower that awaits you between the covers of Pandemic Evolution.