Poetry featured on the Poetry Society of New York as the Pandemic May Day Sonnet poems collaboration

PSNY and Pandemic Poems paired poets up from all over the world to collaborate on a series of Pandemic Poems. Poets were given a partner, a first line, and the last line. Each pair worked together, going line for line, to co-create a sonnet in a single day (May Day).

Throughout the day each poem traveled back forth between partners until it was complete. Following this communal poetry exchange, PSNY and Pandemic Poems strung these sonnets together, one after the other, into a sonnet crown (or “corona”) of epic proportions!

Following is the link to the Petrarch sonnet me and Estelle collaborated on May 01 and created the sonnet. The first and the last lines were given by the Poetry Society of New York. Our moderator was Bernadette McBride (Program Coordinator). Our sonnet was featured on sixth place amongst the hundred sonnet.

ABBAABBA CDCDCD ( Petrarchan Sonnet)

All we have are fumes, I’m dying to faint
The vapid air thick choked and clogged with grief
Suffocates me. It’s been such a relief
My sullen memories have lost their scent
Their vividness gone, like pails of stale paint
My eyes are wide open with disbelief
My happiness is stolen by a thief
Can’t be lit by the sun or a candlelight
And dark this evening grows the horizon
Filling us with crimson ting, blessing us
With some contentment in desolation
I rise with power of love stirring us
To continue in hope, to carry on
As the river’s still moving beside us.

–Megha Sood and Estelle Mandaville