1. Books as Orphans
As a childless person, I have to content myself with the idea that my books and articles are my “children,” my legacy. At times, that’s pale comfort, as I write in To My Unborn Children: “And I must live on, knowing / the tiny wings of your lives / will never beat the summer air.” [1]
And just as parents often have a favourite son or daughter and tend to unfairly lavish more attention on them than on their siblings, authors can experience something similar. For the person who is a writer by nature, not by choice, the urge to write is compelling, almost autonomous of conscious will. It is not the same as a chosen career or trade, which one can easily change when circumstances require. It is indeed a calling, and one that demands many sacrifices of its sons and daughters. The great psychologist Carl Jung put it this way: “A creative person has little power over his own life. He is not free. He is captive and driven by his daimon.” [2]
So by the time a writer has reached mature years, he or she will have released many “children” (books) into the world, not all of whom will have received the same attention to their reputation. Launching a book is akin to launching grown children from the nest: some will do well, some only mediocre, some may not do well at all. The success of books, as with children, is a volatile equation of sweat, skill, luck, timing, and whatever innate qualities they possess. The sad truth of both books and people is that some are destined to be overlooked. For me, that book was Diary of a Pandemic Year, a collection of poems I published in 2021, at the height of the madness. [3] (More on this in a moment.)
The declining fortunes of all but the top One Percent of authors has added insult to injury, as publishing houses devolve more and more responsibility for promotion to the author. In the case of very small publishers, that responsibility can even extend to distribution of books by the author. Add to that the fact that only about one percent of authors ever reach best-selling status—if they happen to be fortunate enough to luck into a contract with a New York-based corporate publisher—and there are quite literally thousands of books each year that fall by the wayside, overlooked and quickly forgotten. In today’s culture of Presentism, as cultural critics Harold Bloom and Camille Paglia dubbed it, a book that’s a scant year old is seen as positively ancient.
It’s arguable that in publishing, just as in the corporate music industry, bestsellers are not lucky accidents of the marketplace but pre-ordained just as monarchies designated their successors. This to me explains how Yuval Harari, a formerly obscure professor at Hebrew University, whose first book Sapiens was originally released only in Hebrew, suddenly went from obscurity to global fame on the bestseller lists despite the fact that his thesis is so full of holes you can drive a train through it. You can do that when you control 90 percent of the manufacturing and distribution chain. And if powerful people take an interest in you, in which case, watch out! Everything comes with a price.
2. Weaponized Viruses & Mass Psychosis
“I resolved that I would stay in the town, and casting myself entirely upon the goodness and protection of the Almighty, would not seek any other shelter whatever; and that, as my times were in His hands, He was as able to keep me in a time of the infection as in a time of health; and if He did not think fit to deliver me, still I was in His hands, and it was meet He should do with me as should seem good to Him.” —Daniel Defoe on the 1665 bubonic plague of London [4]
When the “pandemic” was declared by the World Health Organization in February 2020—on the flimsiest of grounds—I determined to read as much history of plagues and pandemics as I could, well before the current corpus of literature on Covid-19 was published. The Black Death by Philip Ziegler. Bring Out Your Dead by J.H. Powell. Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, writing about the 1665 bubonic plague of London. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Plagues & Peoples by William H. McNeill. Albert Camus’ novel The Plague was startlingly true to life. Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, whose setting is the 14th century bubonic plague in Italy. Unlike Daniel Defoe, who considered leaving London for the safety of the countryside but decided against it, the wealthy characters in Boccaccio’s narrative do just that. As they travel to their comfortable country villas, they pass the time by telling each other stories. The plague thus becomes incidental to the narrative, though Boccaccio paints a harrowing picture of its ravages. Boccaccio repeats a refrain that echoes down through the history of plagues and pandemics: no matter what the state of medical knowledge and efforts to contain plague or limit its destructiveness, “no wisdom availing nor human foresight…” can stop it. [5]
What emerged from these books was a remarkably consistent historical record of human behaviour, with the only variation circa 2020 being the reaction of authorities. In the past, every effort was made NOT to panic the public, even to downplay the seriousness of contagion. With Covid-19 quite the opposite result was desired by governments. Working hand-in-glove with Big Intel and Big Pharma, they engineered a stampede into social conformity and a readiness to roll up sleeves for the touted biochemical savior.
It was astonishing to me how quickly and readily the majority of the population did just that. This dynamic was well understood by authorities, who relied on special operations military units to deploy their expert knowledge of human psychology, as I explain in Words From the Dead. [6] There are certain words that catapult people from the reasonable frame of their daily behaviour into “mass psychosis” and even mob action, as Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet explains in The Psychology of Totalitarianism. “Plague” or “pandemic” are two such words. “The greater good” was weaponized against peoples’ personal best interests. Carl Jung explained how dangerous it is to succumb to the impulse of the herd:
“The individual is still relying on a collective organization to effect his differentiation for him; that is, he has not yet recognized that it is really the individual’s task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own two feet … All collective identities, such as membership in organizations, support of ‘isms,’ and so on, interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible; but they are equally shelters for the poor and weak…” [7]
“Nowadays we can see as never before that the peril which threatens all of us comes not from nature, but from man, from the psyches of the individual and the mass. The psychic aberration of man is the danger. Everything depends upon whether or not our psyche functions properly. If certain persons lose their heads nowadays, a hydrogen bomb will go off.” —Carl Jung [8]
The 21st century threat equivalent of the “hydrogen bomb” that so alarmed Jung writing in the 1950s is of course the bioweapons complex that created Covid-19. This is exhaustively documented in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book, The Wuhan Coverup and the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race. Though coronavirus lethality turned out to be no worse than a seasonal flu, it was the perfect Trojan horse for the experimental mRNA injections, whose lethality was far higher. A recent scientific study analyzing autopsy reports concluded that 74 percent of post-vaccination deaths were “directly due to or significantly contributed to by COVID-19 vaccination.” [9] As I write in my essay, “Means and Ends: Our Broken Ethical Compass,” forthcoming in Covid-19 Pandemonium: A Pandemic of Ignorance, Fear and Greed, The Capture of Our Institutions, [10] the motive seems to stem from a globalist philosophy of eugenics aided and abetted by out-of-control intelligence agencies seeking both greater social control and a drastic reduction in the global population.
Bioweapons expert Francis Boyle, architect of the 1989 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, recently applied to a Florida court to have Covid-19 “vaccines” declared “biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction.” [11] Compared to just two years ago, when such a statement would immediately get you banned as a “conspiracy theorist,” recent American polls now show that 33 percent of the public now believes the “vaccines” are “killing vast numbers of people.” [12] I place “vaccines” in quotation marks because it has almost nothing in common with traditional vaccines, which are supposed to provide one-shot sterilizing immunity. A US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling recently underlined the point: “The majority pointed to Health Freedom Defence Fund’s allegation that CDC had changed the definition of ‘vaccine’ in September 2021, striking the word ‘immunity’ from that definition. The court also noted HFDF’s citations to CDC statements that the vaccines do not prevent transmission, and that natural immunity is superior to the vaccines.” [13] For those of us willing to do the hard slog through the fog of obfuscation created by mainstream media and social media censorship, this was already obvious. It was certainly clear to me by the time Words From the Dead was published in May 2022.
3. Publishing as an Act of Defiance
“Publishing a volume of poetry is like dropping a feather down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” —Don Marquis, author of the archy & mehitabel poems
Which brings me back to Diary of a Pandemic Year. Although a year later I wrote a nonfiction book, Words From the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age, I decided to begin in 2021 with poetry, which has always been a deep spiritual force for me. I needed its mythic power to calm my rattled soul, and hoped it would resonate similarly for readers. As I wrote in the Author’s Note:
“Why write poems instead of simply keeping a journal? Poetry has several advantages over prose. Firstly, poetry condenses language to its most potent constituents—every word in its proper place and each word carefully chosen to create as vivid a picture as possible. And secondly, poetry allows space for intuition to render the spiritual essence of the scene depicted.” —Sean Arthur Joyce [14]
I watched with deepening dismay as the arts community I’ve been a part of my entire creative career capitulated to the authoritarian narrative. The president of the Writers’ Union of Canada, John Degen, took to social media to harangue writers to get their shots, something the head of a writers’ organization has no business doing. When did it become de rigeur for writers to be such well-behaved conformists? Writers and journalists used to be notorious for being difficult, which is their job in society—to ask the tough, impolite questions no one else dares ask. As the late Canadian poet Irving Layton wrote in 1975: “When reading me, I want you to feel / as if I had ripped your skin off… For I do not write to improve your soul; / or to make you feel better, or more humane… I write for the young man, demented, / Who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima…” [15] This is how I put it, in full accord with Layton’s vision of the poet’s role:
And me on the very teeth
of the outer edge, seeing
what has to be seen, what crawls
and lurks in the human shadow.
Eating the bile of it day in,
dull-deadly day out… [16]
So I realized there was no point trying to submit these poems to a Canadian publisher, since the majority of them receive their funding from the federal government via the Canada Council. Clearly, the entire Canadian arts community realized their raison d’être was no longer to disturb the status quo but don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Publishing Diary of a Pandemic Year through my own imprint, Chameleon Fire Editions (established 1990), thus became an act of pure defiance in the face of the New Authoritarianism that demanded we lock up, shut up, and behave like lab monkeys. I never thought I’d live to see the day when my fellow writers, for the most part, would echo that same message and ostracize anyone who refused. A friend of mine recently released a new book whose poems on the pandemic were distinctly anodyne, as if lockdowns were a government-mandated picnic, or at worst, a mild annoyance. By contrast, in Diary, I wrote of the psychological impact of lockdowns: “By six weeks / I’m wearing the sinews / of a scream all day long.” [17] I still see no sign of regret or contrition amongst most Canadian authors, who— like the rest of society—seem to have blundered on in their merry way as if nothing happened.
Naturally, it’s understandable that people want to put trauma behind them. I don’t blame anyone for that. But how are we to move forward if no one admits culpability? How do we learn from our mistakes unless we admit them? As someone recently said with regard to Julian Assange: When it becomes a crime to expose war crimes, then you know you’re being ruled by criminals. I’m sure most war veterans or Holocaust survivors preferred to bury their traumas as deeply in the past as possible. This is verified in epigenetics studies, which reveal that it can take until the third generation before families decide they need to know what happened, as I learned in my research for Laying the Children’s Ghosts to Rest: Canada’s Home Children in the West.
In my extensive readings on the history of plagues and pandemics, I discovered that much has been learned about the psychology of this phenomena. “Various experiments have shown that we become more conformist and respectful of convention when we feel the threat of a disease,” wrote BBC journalist David Robson in 2020. [18] “Fears of contagion lead us to become more conformist and tribalistic, and less accepting of eccentricity. Our moral judgments become harsher and our social attitudes more conservative…” Although I expected better of writers, they were simply falling in step with the majority, whose “moral judgments” extended to cutting off all contact with friends and family members who refused the “vaccine” or dared to question any of the pandemic norms such as lockdowns, masks and “social distancing.” From a historical perspective, no news there. As Boccaccio wrote nearly 700 years ago:
“Tedious were it to recount how citizen avoided citizen, how among neighbours was scarce found any that showed fellow feeling for another, how … brother was forsaken by brother, nephew by uncle, brother by sister, and oftentimes, husband by wife; nay, what is more and scarcely to be believed, fathers and mothers were found to abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate, as if they had been strangers…” —Boccaccio, The Decameron [19]
Writing of that same plague, the Black Death of the 14th century, Philip Ziegler writes in his history:
“The plague not only depopulates and kills, it gnaws the moral stamina and frequently destroys it entirely; thus the sudden demoralization of Roman society from the period of Mark Antony may be explained by the Oriental plague… In such epidemics the best were invariably carried off and the survivors deteriorated morally. Times of plague are always those in which the bestial and diabolical side of human nature gains the upper hand.” —Philip Ziegler, The Black Death [20]
Multiple studies since 2020 have shown that lockdowns were no more effective in slowing the spread of Covid-19 than London authorities’ attempts in 1665 to barricade people inside their homes. As I wrote in Diary of a Pandemic Year: “Facemasks and antisocial / distancing no more effective / than a pocketful of posies, the blind faith / technology will solve everything.” [21] In 1665 lockdowns only guaranteed that the well would be locked in with the sick, with the inevitable deadly outcome. Famously, physicians during that plague wore the now-iconic plague masks shaped like bird’s beaks, with herbs or “posies” stuffed inside to cover the stench of decaying bodies and ward off infection. This became the image for the cover of Diary of a Pandemic Year, a 21st century analogue for masks. In 2020–21, lockdowns ensured a pandemic of spousal and substance abuse, intellectual stunting of children, and an elevated rate of suicide.
“Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men’s justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars,” wrote Albert Camus in The Plague. “Still, if it was an exile, it was, for most of us, exile in one’s own home.” [22]
We have yet to see how the long-term effects of the “pandemic,” or more accurately, its handling by the authorities, will play out on society. A somewhat witless, obvious-as-the-nose-on-your-face study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in February 2021 concluded, appropriately: “With this study, it was understood that the pandemic had not only physical consequences but also psychological consequences. In fact, these psychological consequences are predicted to be long-term, unless action is taken.” [23] In that context, I posed the poetic question in the opening poem of Diary of a Pandemic Year:
Nothing disappears without a trace,
but will we ever return? Or is this
our epitaph, that as a species we are
oil and water, genetically divided
between leavers and takers, the sane
and the psychopaths, the controlled
and the controllers. Fear is the virus.
Don’t let yourself become infected.
The next world is a long way down.
—Sean Arthur Joyce, Diary of a Pandemic Year [24]
4. Poetry as an Act of Transcendence
Sons of Whitman sons of Poe
sons of Lorca and Rimbaud
or their dark daughters
poets of another breath
poets of another vision
Who among you still speaks of revolution
Who among you still unscrews
the locks from the doors
in this revisionist decade?
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti [25]
Because I’ve written so much about the power of poetry over the years—literally tens of thousands of words—I’m going to crib from my own notes. Specifically, a collection of essays still in manuscript titled The Loneliness of the Long Distance Poet, which I hope to eventually publish if I can convince a publisher an audience exists for it beyond two or three digits. In February 2021 I published a short essay (yes, believe it or not I am occasionally capable of a short essay) called “The Soul Medicine of Poetry.” A report had appeared in the media that young people were suddenly showing an interest in poetry, scouring bookshops for inspiration during the darkest days of “pandemic.” At the time, Georgetown University poet Carolyn Forché had said: “In times of peril and danger, we turn, I believe, to poetry for wisdom, for secular prayer and for the language of acknowledgement of our condition.” [26] I find Ferlinghetti’s quote even more apt and inspiring: “Poetry should arise to ecstasy somewhere between speech and song.” And: “Poetry is the shook foil of the imagination. It can shine out and half blind you.” [27]
In “The Soul Medicine of Poetry” I wrote:
It’s an important reminder in a culture that has seen the steady marginalization of the humanities in favour of STEM disciplines. Poetry not only articulates with precision of language that which we wish we could have said ourselves in as few words, it also raises our consciousness. By employing figurative language, whether through simile, metaphor, analogy, or mythic references, it develops our capacity for abstract reasoning and creative solutions. As Maya James, a Georgetown University student living in Columbia, Maryland, puts it: “With poetry, I feel like I’m activating different parts of my brain that I don’t really get to use every single day. So it just feels good for my well-being to read it and write it.” [28]
Poets tend to be empaths, so in addition to exercising parts of the brain most of us seldom get access to, it can help us develop compassion. First century BC Roman poet Juvenal summed it up: “Nature confesses that she has given to the human race the tenderest hearts, by giving us the power to weep. This is the best part of us.” [29] Poet Gary Snyder further develops the connection between poetry and compassion:
“The mystery of language, the poetic imagination, and the mind of compassion are roughly one and the same, and through poetry perhaps they can keep guiding the world toward occasional moments of peace, gratitude, and delight.” —Gary Snyder
At such a dark time in human history, such illuminated moments are precious.
POSTSCRIPT
Diary of a Pandemic Year is a labour of love born of 35 years of practicing the poetic craft, created under the extreme duress of the “pandemic.” It deserves better than obscurity. I care nothing for awards but I hope you won’t think me immodest if I say that this book, in another era, would have become a watermark of its time. I took great care in its design, using special acid-free laid (textured) paper to create a unique limited edition artifact. I sold most of the first edition of 100 by mail order (it still wasn’t possible to do book tours in 2021; without a promotional tour, books die on the vine) but may have some left in addition to the second edition still available.
Because I’d rather you get to read these “lost” poems than have them collect dust in my garage, I’m willing to send a signed copy to you at cost plus postage. The first 6 who reply to me in the comments will get it for free, postage costs only ($5 in Canada; $10 to US).
Cheers!
[1] Sean Arthur Joyce, To My Unborn Children suite, Part 1, Pole Shift & Other Poems, Ekstasis Editions, 2024.
[2] Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Aniela Jaffé (New York: Vintage/Random House, 1961; 1989 ed.), p. 357. “Daimon,” according to a well-referenced article in Wikipedia, derives from ancient Greek, meaning ‘god,’ ‘godlike,’ or ‘fate,’ “originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology… The word is derived from Proto-Indo-European daimon, “provider, divider (of fortunes or destinies)”…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon
[3] Sean Arthur Joyce, Diary of a Pandemic Year (New Denver, BC, Canada: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021).
[4] Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year, (Orinda, CA: Sea Wolf Press, 2020), p. 11. Originally published 1722.
[5] Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron: Or Ten Days’ Entertainment, translated by John Payne with drawings by Jean O’Neill (Cleveland: First Editions Press, 1947), p. 26.
[6] Sean Arthur Joyce, “Walking Where Angels Fear to Tread: Journalism and Democracy,” Words From the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age, (Victoria, BC, Canada: Ekstasis Editions, 2022), pp. 137–141.
[7] Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Aniela Jaffé (New York: Vintage/Random House, 1961; 1989 ed.), pp. 342–43, emphasis mine.
[8] Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Aniela Jaffé (New York: Vintage/Random House, 1961; 1989 ed.), p. 132, emphasis mine.
[9] “A Systematic REVIEW of Autopsy findings in deaths after covid-19 vaccination,” Nicolas Hulscher, Paul E. Alexander, Richard Amerling, Heather Gessling, et al., Forensic Science International, June 21, 2024: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073824001968
[10] Forthcoming from the Brownstone Institute, no publication date announced as of this writing.
[11] “Law Professor Who Wrote 1989 Biological Weapons/Antiterrorism Act Provides Affidavit That COVID 19 Shots Are Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Dr. Joseph Sansone, Vigilant Fox News, June 7, 2024: https://vigilantnews.com/post/law-professor-who-wrote-1989-biological-weapons-antiterrorism-act-provides-affidavit-that-covid-19-shots-are-weapons-of-mass-destruction/
[12] “33% Agree COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Is Killing Large Numbers of People,’” Rasmussen Reports, June 21, 2024: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/public_surveys/33_agree_covid_19_vaccine_is_killing_large_numbers_of_people
[13] “Ninth Circuit Court Rules Correctly COVID-19 mRNA Injections Are Not Legitimate State Interest Due To Being A Treatment, Not A Preventative,” Interest of Justice, Substack, June 8, 2024:
[14] Sean Arthur Joyce, “Author’s Note,” Diary of a Pandemic Year (New Denver, BC, Canada: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021), p. 1.
[15] Irving Layton, “Whom I Write For,” The Darkening Fire: Selected Poems 1945–1968, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975), pp. 110, 111.
[16] Sean Arthur Joyce, “Romancing the Switchblade,” Diary of a Pandemic Year (New Denver, BC, Canada: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021), p. 48.
[17] Sean Arthur Joyce, “A House Divided,” Diary of a Pandemic Year (New Denver, BC, Canada: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021), p. 25.
[18] David Robson, “The fear of coronavirus is changing our psychology,” BBC Features, April 1, 2020: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200401-covid-19-how-fear-of-coronavirus-is-changing-our-psychology
[19] Boccaccio, quoted by Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (London: Penguin Books, 1969; 1982 ed.), pp. 46–49, emphasis mine.
[20] Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (London: Penguin Books, 1969; 1982 ed.), p. 267.
[21] Sean Arthur Joyce, “A Pocketful of Posies,” Diary of a Pandemic Year (New Denver, BC, Canada: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021), p. 17.
[22] Albert Camus, The Plague, translated by Stuart Gilbert (New York: Vintage International/Random House, 1991 ed.), p. 73.
[23] “The Psychological Consequences of COVID-19 Fear and the Moderator Effects of Individuals’ Underlying Illness and Witnessing Infected Friends and Family,” Orhan Koçak, Ömer Erdem Koçak, and Mustafa Z. Younis, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, February 2021, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7917729/ (emphasis mine)
[24] Sean Arthur Joyce, “The Next World,” Diary of a Pandemic Year (New Denver, BC, Canada: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021), p. 7.
[25] Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Adieu á Charlot (Second Populist Manifesto),” Endless Life: Selected Poems (New York: A New Directions Book, 1981, third ed.), p. 199.
[26] “Poetry Power: Faculty and Students Turn to Art Form During Pandemic,” Georgetown University, April 28, 2020: https://www.georgetown.edu/news/poetry-power-faculty-and-students-turn-to-art-form-during-pandemic/
[27] Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Poetry as Insurgent Art (New York: A New Directions Book, 1975; 2007 ed.), pp. 44, 45.
[28] “Poetry Power: Faculty and Students Turn to Art Form During Pandemic,” Georgetown University, April 28, 2020.
[29] Quoted by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, HarperOne, 2000, p. 96.
Hi Sean - I would love a copy of Diary of a Pandemic Year!
I'll email you with my address.
Teresa :)