Essentilal Workers Write Haiku

I came across this article about essential workers in New York City writing haiku that reflects on their experiences during the Covid-19 crisis. Hat tip to Lit Hub for the idea.

Mark Nowak, a professor at Manhattanville College, has been leading virtual poetry workshops with a group of 8-10 participants about twice a month. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Subway booth clerk Kelebohile Nkhereanye said she looks forward to the group’s online gatherings as “a way to process my day and to try to make sense of what’s going on.

“Low-level workers can be invisible,” she added. “Just because I have a certain job doesn’t mean I’m not an educated African woman.”

Writing haiku and meeting with her fellow writers, even virtually, she said, has been “a gift, a blessing.”

“To have the opportunity to write,” she added, “is the opportunity to remind people that yes, I exist.”

Below are some samples of the poems the participants have written.

One person wrote a poem about a customer's reaction after New York's MTA banned cash transactions:

Stress riding the subway
Questions without answers
Not workers fault

A taxi driver wrote these poems:

Empty taxi cabs
cruising along avenues
with bankrupt drivers

No opera now
the virus darkened the Met
but birds sing to me

A childcare worker wrote these two as part of her commute:

Rats, humans vie for space
In urban sidewalks
Cracks in tenement walls
 
Bangladeshi men
Deliver tacos
Better days, Upper East Side