Reflections on the Pandemic COVID and Social Crises in the Year Everything Changed

EDITED BY TERESA POLITANO

Reflections on the Pandemic: COVID and Social Crises in the Year Everything Changed is a collection of essays, poems, and artwork that captures the raw energy and emotion of 2020 from the perspective of the Rutgers University community. The project features work from a diverse group of Rutgers scholars, students, staff, and alumni. Reflecting on 2020 from a number of perspectives—mortality, justice, freedom, equality, democracy, family, health, love, hate, economics, history, medicine, science, social justice, the environment, art, food, sanity—the book features contributions by Evie Shockley, Joyce Carol Oates, Naomi Jackson, Ulla Berg, Grace Lynne Haynes, Jordan Casteel, and Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway, among others. This book, through its rich and imaginative storytelling at the intersection of scholarly expertise and personal narrative, brings readers into the hearts and minds of not just the Rutgers community but the world.

TERESA POLITANO is an award-winning writer, editor, and educator. In 2022, she won the International Association of Culinary Professionals Award for Personal Essays / Memoir. She is the author of Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey (Rutgers University Press, 2010). She teaches at Rutgers University and is part of the university’s Academic Initiatives team.

of Contents

Preface by Teresa Politano

1. Reflections in a COVID Photograph, by Jonathan Holloway

2. pantoum: 2020, by Evie Shockley

3. Mercy (As If), by Mark Doty

4. Writing My Last Book, by Rigoberto González

5. Taking the Court, by Steve Pikiell

6. The New Normal, by Revathi Machan

7. Emerging Not Stronger or Weaker but Different, by Stephanie Bonne

8. Looking for a Better End Game, Mary E. O’Dowd

9. Pandemic Dispatches (East Africa–North America), by Angelique Haugerud

10. War of the World: How Humans Became a Destructive Force of Nature, Paul G. Falkowski

11. Jared (2020), by Jordan Casteel

12. Reflections on Being Human in the Twenty-First Century, by Yalidy Matos

13. Risking Delight in the Middle of a Pandemic, by Yehoshua November

14. Days of 2020: Fear without Knowledge, by Mark Doty

15. A Litany for Survival, by Naomi Jackson

16. Sojourner Truth, Founding Mother, by Grace Lynne Haynes

17. A Letter to Juneteenth on the Embodied History of Life in 2020, by Gregory Pardlo

18. We Cannot Escape History, by Louis P. Masur

19. Paying Attention, by James Goodman

20. A Reckoning with Names: Signs, Symbols, and the Meanings of History, by David Greenberg

21. The COVID States Project: Empowering a National Response, by Katherine Ognyanova

22. I’ve Missed You (2021), by Didier William

23. Burning Bologna, 2021, by Susan L. Miller

24. Pandemic Theology: “Bliss and Grief,” by Susan L. Miller

25. Kid’s Cloth Face Mask from Cat & Jack™, by Belinda McKeon

26. Call the Midwife, by Leah Falk

27. Slap Roti and the Story of New York City, by Marc Aronson

28. From The Journal of a Therapy Cat, by Joyce Carol Oates

29. Black and Gray, by Teresa Politano

30. Playing with Anxiety, by Christian Lighty

31. Virtual Class #219, March 2021, 2:50 p.m.–4:10 p.m. by Mackenzie Kean

32. It’s Harder for Extroverts, by Kelly-Jane Cotter

33. The Old Has Passed Away, Behold, the New Has Come (2 Corinthians 5:17), by Stephen Masaryk

34. Rutgers spit test, by Nick Romanenko

35. Connectivity, Connection, and Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic, by Vikki Katz and Amy Jordan

36. The Faculty Parent: Juggling Parenting, Teaching, Research, and Writing in Uncertain Times, by Patricia Akhimie

37. Resiliency, Resourcefulness, Responsibility, and Reinvention, by David Dreyfus

38. COVID-19 and Spaces of Confinement, by Ulla Berg

39. STOP! (2021), by Stephanie Boyer

40. The Climate Crisis and the University, by Robert E. Kopp

41. 2020: A New Jersey Economy Reinvented, by James W. Hughes

42. Work in the Pandemic and Beyond, by Adrienne E. Eaton

43. The Tolling Bell, by Katherine C. Epstein

44. Stagecoach Mary, by Kimberly Camp

45. On Racism in Museums, by Kimberly Camp

46. STYLE Bird, by Grace Lynne Haynes

47. Meet Me at the Theatre at the End of the World: Thirteen Illuminations and an After-Glow, by Caridad Svich

48. What Kind of Pain, by Leslieann Hobayan

49. Be Still, by Leslieann Hobayan

50. Sorrow, by David Orr

51. The Only Replacement, by Ben Purkert

Acknowledgments