Work
Title: Lockdown
Posted Time: 2020
Author: Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage (1963 - ) is a British poet, Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds, and current British national Poet Laureate (2019-2029). He graduated from Portsmouth University (BA) and Manchester University (MA). Previously, he taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Sheffield, the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop and Manchester Metropolitan University (Armitage, Biography).
Details about its publication:
it is published online on Simon Armitage's official website.
Content, Metaphor and Implications:
To describe the lockdown in Eyam under the current COVID-19 pandemic, he connects it with the outbreak of bubonic plague in Eyam in the 17 century and the epic Meghadūta by the Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa (Flood 2020). He writes, "in ye olde Eyam. They couldn't un-see (Armitage 2020, 5-6)," which brings the readers back to the past plague.
He borrows several metaphors from that plague. "the Boundary Stone, that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes, thimbles brimming with vinegar wine purging the plagued coins (Armitage 2020, 7-10)." The boundary stone in Eyam is where people traded and communicated during the plague. People put coins into the holes on that stone, and people outside can collect those coins and put some provisions beside the stone, such as wine and bread (Flood 2020). It represents people's wisdom in adapting their ways of communication to the need for isolation. We can still communicate and live our life even under the plague.
Then, he told a romantic tragedy between a couple separated by the quarantine. "Which brought to mind the sorry story of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre, star-crossed lovers on either side of the quarantine line whose wordless courtship spanned the river till she came no longer (Armitage 2020, 11-16)." The girl lived in Eyam, but her lover was outside the village. Because of the quarantine regulations, they can't meet and can only talk from a distance until they break up. These lines describe the common obstacles for people under quarantine, which separate people, challenge ways of interacting with others that we get used to, and people's relationships themselves. Armitage does not indicate when this story happened because these obstacles happen every time people quarantine under the plague.
Armitage connects these epidemics, COVID-19 and bubonic plague, with the Sanskrit epic Meghadūta.
"But slept again
and dreamt this time.
of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,
a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,
streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,
embroidered bedspreads
of meadows and hedges,
bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks, waterfalls, creeks,
the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain,
the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,
the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so (Armitage 2020, 17-34)."
This passage describes an exile sending reassuring words to his wife through a passing cloud with the help of yaksha, a kind of powerful spirit in Indian myth (Flood 2020). Along the message's route, the scenery is amazing and beautiful, implying the route we get through isolation and quarantine is full of hope and beauty and suggesting how things will pass away. Finally, Armitage shows that the problems will not be addressed quickly. We need to be patient with and be considerate of each other, the world under the plague, and the process we must take (Flood 2020).
All of the obstacles and resolutions he described above need our patience, wisdom, awareness of our current situation, and commonality of people's experiences about plague across the geographical and historical boundaries. He offers his readers consoling regarding our separateness, isolation, and other lockdown challenges. He invites us "to focus and think and be contemplative" with the awareness of the others and our circumstances and patience about the process(Flood 2020).