Letters from the Pandemic by Sasha Colby * Editor’s note: we are pleased to introduce Letters from the Pandemic: A 30th Anniversary Commemorative Public Writing Project of the Graduate Liberal Studies Program of Simon Fraser University (SFU). Sasha Colby, Director of Graduate Liberal Studies, provides an introduction (below) to the Pandemic Letters project. The letters…
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The Art of Losing: Loss and Gain During a Pandemic by Elaine Williamson Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. — Elizabeth Bishop * When my daughters started their final year of high school and university in the fall…
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Papyrus by Diane McGee * Spring… Too long… Gongula… — “Papyrus,” by Ezra Pound [1] Look: the ellipses speak. They shout, in fact, insistent. I see now; Covid has really improved my vision. It’s always been about the ellipses, never about the stated. Context confers definition, words are just vacant containers. Read or hear them, though,…
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Dear Geryon by Griffin Tedeschini * Dear Geryon “What is time made of?” This, your favourite question, trails behind me, thin free shadow. This pandemic robs me of anchor points, no solidity to hang memory on. Instead, time calibrates by his growth, when he loses his puppy teeth, his first eruption of a bark. He…
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ESSAY: Sacred Cows by Sheila O’Donoghue * At The Ormsby Review we are pleased to host Letters from the Pandemic: A 30th Anniversary Commemorative Public Writing Project of the Graduate Liberal Studies Program of Simon Fraser University. Since December 2020, we have uploaded 27 letters and essays described by program director Sasha Colby as “moving…
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Covid 19: Living the Blues by Teresa Stolarskyj * Dear friends, In the days before Covid-19, indeed, for many years before it, I held residency on Saturday afternoons at Vancouver’s Railway Club. Immersing into the blues and rock n’ roll for a few hours a week, as regulars and newcomers alike took turns on the…
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Dear GLS family by Jordan Johnston * “It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself to deal with difficult times,” said Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, known to posterity as Seneca. The Spaniard, who rose to prominence in the Roman Empire, wrote those words in 65 CE. He knew what…
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The Elms by Katherine Krampol * Dearest V., Too long without words — forgive me. It was such an effort adjusting to this new life of perennial solitude and I lost myself in it. But today, the air is fresh and hopeful — Spring is coming! You were the first I thought to write to….
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Letters from the Pandemic 23: Letter to Mary Magdalene by Lilian Broca * Dear Mariam, Who would have imagined at the time we first met a few years ago that our newly formed relationship would be interrupted for several months due to a pandemic threatening the entire world? I certainly didn’t and I suspect nor…
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Letters from the Pandemic 22: Dear Covid-19 by Al Jones * Dear Covid-19, You seem so very hungry You have run all over the world You need to cling to us You bring out the best in us You bring out the worst You don’t care where we are from You don’t even have life…
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Letters from the Pandemic 21: Dear Sylvia by Jenny Lee * We danced, Sylvia, oh how we danced. Truth be told, my stomach bopped rather more than the rest of me and my sandals caught on the grass, slowing each enthusiastic twist and turn, but the live band lifted our feet. Would you believe this…
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Letters from the Pandemic 20: Two Sisters From Alabama by Tom Morton * When I think about 2020 two events come to mind: the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Both events share stories of humanity, sacrifice, and death. When I think of the Covid-19 pandemic my mind does not focus on the…
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Letters from the Pandemic 19: My Dearest Maddie by Cindy Li * My Dearest Maddie: When your dad and I learned that we were expecting you, I could not in my wildest dreams have guessed what kind of world you would be born into. On February 22, 2020, you were born at BC Women’s Hospital….
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ESSAY: Walking in the time of Corona by Nina Watts * It was a Friday morning in May and I had arranged to meet my friend on a street corner close to her home in the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver. We were planning an urban wander with no particular destination. As I walked west from…
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Letters from the Pandemic 17: Dear Antoinette by Jennifer Martin * Dear Antoinette, I saw a red dress today, made entirely of flowers, leaves, and branches. There is a wildness in this dress, with its hem of berries, grasses, and cedar, and I thought of how much it would become you. While I cannot admit…
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Letters from the Pandemic 16: Dear Percy by Jane Frankish * Dear Percy, In a letter to Thomas Love Peacock, dated November 9, 1818, you write, “You know I always seek in what I see the manifestation of something beyond the present and tangible object….”[1] With this in mind, I would like to share with…
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