These Weighted Months - Michele Fermanis-Winward - Bog

'This suite of poems was written under the constraints of a pandemic, Covid-19, in 2020. It is a chronicle of lockdown, first in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales then during stage four restrictions in Melbourne, Victoria. It is the poetic response of one person, Michele, to the hours, days, nights and months spent mainly confined to one small room, a studio apartment in St Kilda, which she shared with her partner and her assistance dog. The poems evoke life and the lack of it, in local streets and bluestone lanes, and along the shores of Port Phillip Bay. There are stories of people on the margins, financially and mentally. Michele travelled to Melbourne in June to assist her 94-year-old uncle after a catastrophic brain injury. An uncle who was unaware of border closures, restrictions or his own condition as she coaxed him back to health. Michele bears witness to the feelings of millions of Australians during an uncertain time, of suffering, of displacement, of boredom and depression, tempered by hope of eventual escape from lockdown and return to the life they knew before the arrival of this deadly virus.' - Dr Brendan Doyle, poet, editor and translator