Artist, writer and practical activist Nicky Saunter remembers weekly act of creative solidarity during the Covid-19 lockdowns: plague poems for plague times, reminding us that writing may be a solitary pleasure but sharing is an act of magic.
1,850 words: estimated reading time = 7.5 minutes
Writing poetry sometimes feels like a dirty secret — something many people do, but they don’t like to shout about it too much. Sometimes for fear of ridicule, sometimes because what they are writing may be more revealing than they are comfortable with. This may seem a strange sensation to those who have grown up in a world where social media expects you to bare all, to open your heart to strangers and to confess your deepest fears and emotions. But perhaps poets are a strange mix of being both shy of revealing themselves and yet needing to be truly heard and understood.
Those of us who write poems perhaps have moments of wistfulness about a time when poets could make a good living, were part of the glitterati, invited to the most happening soirees and making headlines in daily newspapers. These days it is only dead poets and the occasional poet laureate whose name is widely known, and few people are able to quote poetry at any length.
Yet poetry persists and pops up so often in times of stress and trauma, when understanding is needed and when reflection on a complex issue fails to deliver a simple answer. Occasionally someone young and cool on YouTube performs their own poem in response to an event in the never-ending newscycle. Like rap and song lyrics, these words cut through the image storm that is social media, and burn brightly. We recognise this ancient flame for what it is — someone speaking from the heart out into the world without knowing if anyone is listening or if people are listening, whether anyone will understand. Will they “get it”? Will they “get me?”
Plague poems
During the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, a small group of people who didn’t all know each other came together on a WhatsApp group (before we were all deluged in such groups…) to write One Poem a Week. The idea was to follow a theme that had arisen naturally in the world, from our experiences that week. As time went on, we sometimes took as a theme words or phrases from a poem written the previous week. These poems became a live chain of intersecting thoughts and ideas weaving through the airwaves. In the breaks between lockdowns, we published two slim volumes and got together to read live in front of an audience. None of us had done this before.
In 2026 the group still lives on, our weekly poems still punctuated by terrifying headlines, family matters, news of births and deaths, ideas for art, shared grumbles, photos of nature, music choices and more. The weekly arrival of poems straight from other people’s minds on a shared theme drop like ripe cherries saved from the birds — rare and delicious.
I would like to share here a handful of poems from across these years with a little about where they came from. Reading them again triggers incredibly strong memories and sensations from the time of writing, although many are also written themselves about times past. I have learned that writing them is a solitary pleasure but sharing them is magic and well worth the risk.
The Poems
It is interesting how poetry kaleidoscopes time and brings to the surface long-forgotten moments in great clarity. In the Essex market town where our family went shopping in the 1970s was an old fashioned grocer’s shop called Bowtell’s, where men behind counters performed magic to my young eye, wrapping cheese without string or tape.
Wrap Saturday morning at the grocers, men in white coats stand ready Pungent coffee aroma drifts from the roaster in the window And so the show begins - curtains up At the great glass altar of cheese. The squat cheddar king sits heavy on his throne Releasing reluctantly an infant slice to the wire, The stagehands respectfully separate the two Placing the small block just once in the spotlight Square in the centre of the greaseproof paper stage. A magician has appeared, pencil behind his ear A drum roll, the first fold; a gasp, the second fold, The semi-nude block is turned blushing from our gaze The cymbals clash - the final tuck, a secret learned And it’s over with a bow It’s a wrap.
Sometimes a news item fills you with such a powerful response that it becomes a real sensation in your own body. It can literally make you feel sick. Writing and empathy are strong partners.
Fried I heard they fried a woman in Arizona in a prison cage beneath the blistering sun and I say blistering because that's what the metal cage did to her skin can you begin to imagine that? On my wrist I have a tiny burn mark shiny, pebble smooth and beautiful now it hurt like hell fresh from the oven shelf where I left a tiny piece of myself. What does it feel like to know that whatever you touch is going to sear you, char your flesh like a tuna steak (we are all from fish after all) and will it smell like food or like me how long will the metal hook pain last as it grids my face, back, thigh or arm with the live pattern of cruelty she didn't live - Marcia Powell banged up for banging for money but I remember her and so will you.
We took in an old staff rescue dog called Buster who enjoyed the next few years moving like an ageing mafia boss between the sofa, rug, bed and garden in a slow stroll and with a big smile on his face. There is nothing like a dog for teaching a restless soul how to see the moment.
Sleeping Dogs how can it be that the snore of a loved one fast asleep raises deep in the night’s bestial dark such ire, such stabbing murderous thoughts and yet what soothing honey is gifted by the rhythmic rasp of a sleeping dog before the fire
Some images will never be forgotten even if we wish they could be. We sat watching footage of desperate people crossing the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas in the hope of something better, only to be trapped in a no-man’s land of makeshift shelters and endless paperwork.
Shell Someone’s home, such a tiny thing Curled in marble coils of calcium On the sun-warm palm of a child Staring in awe at this seaside wizardry How did they get here? And where have they all gone? Unique on a beach of millions Like so many life jackets on Lesbos Abandoned by seasick migrants Sea, salt and air will out and Shells become sandcastles But life jackets are here to stay
Unbelievably, war has returned to Europe and Ukraine was fighting for its life. Elsewhere in the Sudan or Syria, people continued to hide from soldiers and fear their weapons and their lack of humanity. I think often about women and children, the elderly in these times of physical extremis.
War Finger to her lips, shushing for life the curious toddler Rocking the mewling infant to the safety of sleep The last biscuit in exchange for stillness Distraction from boots on the stairs Metal and muscle crashing past Please, please let them just pass Not notice this door, paint peeling gently Smell of cabbage poverty lingering No men to see here, no threat at all Just one sweating mother, shepherding Her babies down the hall Her Kalashnikov heavy but ready
Heat and fire were frequent themes as they came in waves across the world, increasing in their strength and threat to life. Sometimes a good story emerges from such fear and panic — as when local people came to the rescue when a community field went up in flames.
Fields on fire One cigarette butt from a hairless lip Is all it took to torch the hay Strewn with care round tender trees Searching still for sap root safety (Aren’t we all?) But even as the cinders sparked skyward Supporters poured in a soothing flood To extinguish the pain, splash laughter on flames Buckets and barrows, old-fashioned really But prompt and willing, that’s the key The rest is nature’s job, rejuvenation The total miracle of life from death
These two need no explanation, but simply arrived as people became both richer and poorer, warmer and colder. Short poems can be just as impactful as long ones.
The rich I had a dream In which The rich Became smaller The richer they got The Sunday times Rich list Was tragically Eaten by Their own Overbred Pet lapdogs
Cold Should the half of the world too cold Cuddle up to the half too hot We might all be warm
Although strong emotions tend to start poetry into life for me, these can be positive: love, nature, hope, joy. It seems right in these trying times to finish with a couple of these.
Drenched You know the first time you feel tropical rain It makes you laugh, just hoot with laughter The joke is on you, with your hopes of reaching shelter Before the mighty heavens crack and broil Time and wind stops, temperature dips And we are drenched both to our slick skins Between the car and the porch overhang Metres that might as well be miles Out in the yard with fat drops bouncing up red mud The earth is alive with jumping water in slo mo I leap and then you, splashing like tots Mouths open to the pummelling sky The rains have come, bringing life and food Joy runs untrammelled down gutters and pipes Bubbling hope, spurting fountains alive And us too, dancing in disbelief.
Flow There is a point of particular caramel calm Before the shutter finally falls And light commits indelibly to film Every line and furrow of your beloved face When focus is all, line and pattern Form effortlessly into seamless composition The quadrille of rustling silk falls quiet A pause as distant music holds its breath Freezing forever the tilt of a head, a raised arm And in that decisive moment, I am in flow.
All poems © Nicky Saunter 2026.
Find more
The One Poem a Week project resulted in Plague Poems: March April May 2020, by Andrew Simms, Nicky Saunter and Nick Robins. You can read more at Nicky’s website, Through The Round Window.
During that first lockdown, ClimateCultures invited members to send in something for our Quarantine Connection series, and you can read the 40 contributions we curated over eight weeks: images, poems, audio or video pieces, short stories, research snippets, event or exhibition programme, extracts from a longer piece — all helping us to fight feelings of isolation when our physical cultural spaces were closed or restricted for the usual sharing of art, knowledge and experience.
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From 2026, ClimateCultures is inviting members to say something about how they use AI in their work and in their posts for us. We will be exploring this in future posts here and at our ClimateCultures & more Substack.
Nicky – “Although I have used AI to create images in Canva, I found it too limiting and same-looking to use again and haven’t used it since. I used it to bring together some sources for research, but it didn’t come up with anything I hadn’t found myself.
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