The World Poetics of Lockdown in Pandemic Poetry

Abstract This essay uses contemporary theories on World Literature to discuss two anthologies of pandemic poetry: Singing in the Dark: A Global Anthology Poetry Under Lockdown , and And We Came Outside Saw Stars Again: Writers from Around Covid-19 Pandemic . These develop a new criticality issues migration, biopower, inequality that have long “plagued” cultures late capitalism. As they represent various states lockdown imposed around world due spread coronavirus, grapple with paradoxical experience “singular-universal” comes living pandemic. By emphasizing untranslatability diverse bodies, races, cultures, languages, these deconstruct perceived synchrony experiencing lockdown. reveals how attempt Eurocentrism “World Literature” by reconfiguring category “global” representing collective trauma.