Covid19 Sutras

Poetry. Writing within the tradition of wisdom literature, Lazer's COVID19 SUTRAS presents a real-time engagement with the early phases of the pandemic, as that tragedy began to merge with the consequences of the death of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, police brutality, and the increased awareness of the virus of American systemic racism. Lazer's series of poems hold outrage and peace, anger and momentary joy within a shared space. In the tradition of Chinese poet Tu Fu, Lazer's writing anchors itself in a path of sustained Zen meditation and pastoral rejuvenation as means toward balance and insight. As with Lazer's most recent works--Thinking in Jewish, Brush Mind, Slowly Becoming Awake, and Poems That Look Just Like Poems--COVID19 SUTRAS continues his exploration of the nature of consciousness itself, and those momentary sudden inscriptions that are part and parcel of the grace of each human incarnation.

Hank Lazer's poetry has always traced the ways we navigate time. In COVID 19 SUTRAS, he writes into and through this time of crises in poems alternatively meditative and wild with grief. He takes a census of backyard birds before checking the death count. I'm grateful for the way he documents this complicated and perilous moment.--Rae Armantrout