Tears of Rain in the Pandemic and a Physician

by Zeenat Chowdhury-Jackson MD

Overview

Zeenat Chowdhury-Jackson MD's inspiration for this highly introspective volume of modern poetry and situational perceptions came from her own roller coaster of feelings of isolation during the 2020 pandemic. The book is the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Zeenat decided to publish her modern poems because she wanted to share with others how people react differently in certain stressful situations.

''Zeenat wants to tell poetry lovers that they can be in different profession but that ultimate goodness resides in people's perceptions and compassions. Those themes and feelings differentiate us from robots.''

Dedicated to all victims of COVID-19, front line workers, and healthcare workers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781638371878
Publisher:	Palmetto Publishing
Publication date:	06/30/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	94
File size:	937 KB

About the Author

Zeenat Chowdhury-Jackson MD is a practicing physician in the US. Like most people, she was isolated and challenged emotionally, and physically during the 2020 pandemic, as well as clinically in her job as a doctor. There was a shelter for her, in writing, where she escaped every day to cope with her stress. These modern poems are the product of the Zeenat's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner.

Table of Contents

               ContentsTears of RainThank You to My ColleaguesBuy MeFlowers of Tears in PandemicEvery Time You Leave MeAccommodation in COVID Storage Box 2020DignityWhat Is It, COVID?LoveNightmare of Time; COVID Has No TimeLayersThe Pirate Goes to Heaven without a SmartphoneIn TimeWe Never Leave; Tell Our AncestorsPrayer for the Password in a PandemicTrauma SurgeonTour GuideMy CockatielDesireDegraded Hippocratic Oath from COVID UnitMy New GenerationReal Estate in PandemicRetirement in PandemicLight-Blue SunglassesThe ExtensionInner LookI Don't ExistMadness of Possessiveness in a GlitchA Letter from a Solider in a PandemicMisplaced but Not Lost in a PandemicWish or ChooseI Will Still Search for YouPhotographer, Painter in a PandemicBubbleBeautiful MindMoneyEmpty Year 2020Adapted, Face to Face, COVIDProfileOnce upon a Digital Dream at a COVID-Free PlatformPost-COVID RehabilitationWin That Bright Beautiful Day 

Editorial Reviews

2021-08-27
A collection offers pandemic-themed poems by a physician.

Chowdhury-Jackson contemplates the psychological and physical side effects of the Covid-19 outbreak, her own and other people’s mortality, and the overwhelming death toll of the pandemic in this volume of free verse. “COVID 2020: the year of my isolation and my / imagination,” she writes early on. The speaker takes on the perspective of a dead Covid-19 patient expressing gratitude to the first responders who cared for her in “Thank You to My Colleagues.” The ambiguity of being sedated in isolation, hanging between life and death, is the focus of “Every Time You Leave Me,” which also explores the weariness of health care workers. “I feel as though I am nothing but a COVID-vaccinated / zombie, / with my very dark lipstick and my N95,” the poet writes. Like many people during this unusual period, she wonders about Covid-19: “Is this a disease of the mind, or of the body?” The speaker struggles to reconcile her punctual and conventional approach to life with the chaos of the pandemic, which teaches her that “death is unpredictable, and has no real time.” Heaven, demons, and ghosts are recurring themes throughout these poems. Chowdhury-Jackson is unflinching in her medical descriptions of the worst-case scenarios. She details intubated patients on propofol, the deafening silence after a ventilator has been turned off, and the toe tags of bodies that never make it to the morgue. Her compassion for her patients is palpable in these poems, as when she laments: “I heard the sound, a song of your heart…The heart that I used to listen to on every visit is now in silence…Now I see a flat line.” She produces the occasional clever turn of phrase, such as “crowded thoughts of clouds” and “silvery wishes, frozen in a / glitch.” Unfortunately, several pieces veer away from the pandemic and will confound readers, such as “Layers,” which likens America to a cake, and “Money,” a weak diatribe about capitalism.

A timely, intense, and engrossing volume of poetry centered on Covid-19.

Kirkus Reviews