Locked Down: poems, diaries and art from the 2020 pandemic

ISBN 978-1-909404-41-0. Anthology 280 pages.

An anthology of poems, diaries and art from the 2020 pandemic, edited by Susan Jane Sims, with over a hundred contributors. Profits are donated to Mark Sims’ fund for Cancer Research UK.

This anthology bears witness to the events of 2020;events that have changed us all and have possibly changed forever the way we live our lives in the developed world. These contributions: poems, diary extracts and artwork from over a hundred people are a testament to the courage and resourcefulness of us human beings. As submissions flooded in I chose the pieces that moved me and wove them together with the aim of telling the story of this extraordinary year.

Susan Jane Sims

There are superb poems here from many contrasting voices, but this anthology is much greater than the sum of its parts. A community is talking to itself as it finds out what it is like to go through lockdown and its aftermath under the shadow of a global pandemic — from novelty via tedium and desperation to renewal, resilience and creativity. By turns enlightening, moving and entertaining, taken as a whole it is affirmative and uplifting.

John Freeman

Sample poems