The Covid Pandemic and the Slovenian Poetry

Abstract

My contribution will present something that could be defined as an »insider research method«, as I start from analysing my own poem in order to proceed to the main topic, i.e. the discourse and the representation of the Covid pandemic in Slovenian poetry during the years 2020-2021. As such it is temporary research, firstly, since the pandemic still continues and has – in Slovenia – just drastically worsened, and secondly, since we might expect a bigger output of poetical works thematising Covid in the future months and years. There is another process that has to come to a resolution. In the contribution it becomes clear that the discourse and the representation of Covid was heavily indebted to the current Slovenian political situation. The (supposedly) totalitarian tendencies of the government measures not exclusively aimed at Covid, the corruption affairs related to Covid and the ensuing protests against the government are all present in the Slovenian »Covid poetry«; yet the tensions between civil society and the government seem far from being at an end. I find the politicisation of poetry the basic and perhaps specific feature of the Slovenian poetry on Covid.