Poems in a Pandemic is a poetry and art competition for frontline social care support staff, leaders and nurses to capture their thoughts, feelings and experiences of caring for people in a pandemic.

Join us at this press conference as we promote Covid-19 poems entries from all of the fantastic heroes working in the social care sector.

These care worker contributions deserve recognition and their experiences to be shared with everyone.

About Poems in a Pandemic

A coalition of social care providers, supported by Care Talk, invite the whole of the social care sector to express their feelings and share their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic by writing poetry and creating illustrations and paintings.

These poems and artwork should reflect individual experiences of delivering care in this crisis.

Poetry and art can be therapeutic as people may find relief and consolation in putting their thoughts and feelings to paper and sharing with others. Equally, this is an opportunity to capture some biographical reports around our frontline staff and share their contributions.

The Categories:

1. Hope

2. Recovery

3. Isolation

4. Humour

5. Reflection

6. Loss

7. Bereavement

8. Observation

9. Uplifting

10. Bravery

Artwork

A painting and illustrations competition will run alongside the poetry competition. This can be submitted in addition to – or instead of – a poem, to illustrate each of the 10 categories outlined above. In addition to this we are looking for artwork for the book cover, which will represent the overall theme.

Outcomes

10 winning poems will be selected from each category. Each category will have an overall winner.

We will work with category winners to learn more about their experiences and to share their stories. This biographical piece will include photographs of the individuals.

The winning 100 poems will be published in a book with all proceeds going to supporting the mental health of care workers through art projects.  Register here.