The COVID-19 pandemic is assumed to have caused an increase in the number of socially isolated people. Social Isolation was defined as less frequent contact with people other than co-residing family members. Mental health outcomes of such situation include psychological distress, suicidal ideation, loneliness, and fear of COVID-19.
Published in Chapter:
August Bover, “El contagi” (2021): Pandemic, Isolation, and the Therapeutic Power of Poetry
Copyright: © 2023
|Pages: 23
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4735-2.ch005
Abstract
In November 2021, August Bover (Barcelona 1949) published the collection of poems El Contagi. His previous poetic works include En pèlag d'amor (1999); L'hivern sota el Cadí (2001); Mojave (2006); the bilingual anthology Vicino al mare (2006); Terres de llicorella. Imatges del Priorat (2008); the trilogy Cloc! (2011), Beabà (2014), and Tornaveu (2018); and the collection of poetry and prose Blau marí (2018). El Contagi contains 41 poems which, with the exception of the last one (“Senyal?”), were composed between March and June 2020, during the lockdown that was decreed in an attempt to contain contagions in the first phase of the pandemic. This contribution synthesises the results of the study of the text, according to the methodology based on the objectivisation, problematisation, and literarisation of the experience of the pandemic and its psychological consequences. This kind of investigation focuses on the use of literature as a therapeutic tool, in order to face, process, and progressively overcome the trauma caused by this impactful experience.