Poetry during lockdown

2021 Letters in Lockdown

We had hoped it would not be necessary, but the lockdown in the Netherlands in early 2021 meant we again had time to produce poetry and artwork. Again, colleagues and students demonstrated their creativity in a variety of different forms and formats. The collection, Letters in Lockdown, can be freely downloaded. There are haiku and excerpts from novels, photographs and paintings. We held online writing workshops to help people get started and to receive feedback. These offered a welcome relief from online meetings and teaching, and brought together different groups of people.

Our second volume was put together by Paul Stephenson, Eva Durlinger and myself.

2020 Quarantine Spring

During the height of the lockdown in early 2020, students and colleagues at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences produced a booklet of poetry and images.

This beautifully captures a particular moment, as we all came to terms with the new situation. It was also a way of keeping in contact with one another and building community even though we couldn’t meet in person.

Some poems are very moving, as people describe their longings to be with loved ones far away. Others are more light-hearted. There is a whole series of limericks, with a first line of “There once was a tutor/student on Zoom”.

You can also read a short interview with Paul Stephenson and myself on the Maastricht University website. Together with Eva Durlinger and John Parkinson, we coordinated the production of this booklet.