This is the fourth book in our collection with the beautiful cover by my sister and artist Anna-Maria Tauau (we just call her Maria) and she just graduated with her Master of Applied Indigenous Knowledge degree this year and was one of the writers as well.
The collection is similar to the others of having writers write on the theme of sharing their COVID-19 experiences from within their communities through poetry or short stories.
There are some poems/short stories that are angry, happy and also some that are sad but hope was encouraged as we each navigated our space through the pandemic.
It was also fitting to have our book launch on that weekend as the mask restrictions as well as the COVID-19 Traffic light system had been lifted earlier and we could once again move freely without wearing masks at the book launch.
I'd like to now share one of the acrostic poems that my sister wrote called "CORONA VIRUS CRISIS". It's an interesting poem because with the global pandemic came new vocabulary, some of which we had not used or heard of before, or words were used in new ways...
Contract tracing
Outbreak
Recovery
Oxford Astrazeneca Vaccine
N95 (masks)
Asymptomatic
Ventilators
Incubation period
Respiratory symptoms
Infectious
Sanitizer and soap
Conferencing with Zoom
Restricted movement
Infodemic
Social distance
Immunization
Self-isolation
by Anna-Maria Tauau
