Karl Parkinson presents The People Died, published in his recent collection Sacred Symphony (Culture Matters)

The poem has been made into a video by poet and videographer Dave Lordan, and performed by myself. It's a danse macabre, an avant-garde videopoem for the 21st century that looks back on the poetic tradition, and to our present situation.

I received an Arts Council Covid-19 response award, to make spoken word video poetry for people during the pandemic, and this is one of the pieces I made. It was sparked off from listening to Puerto Rican Obituary by Pedro Pietri, and with the phrase the people died running through my head, I went on a poetic run, adding more lines and extending the poem with relevant unpublished pieces I had, resulting in a ten page poem. Please share.

If you would like to read the text of this and other recent poems, you can buy Sacred Symphony here.