Welcome to UniOvi!!!

Dear Class of 2020-2021,

It's a pleasure to have you here! Despite the unusual circumstances we are going through, you must know that your LITIN teachers are delighted to have you on Campus, and that we'll do our best to ensure that you have an excellent education and a good college experience. 

In the LITIN course we are going to try and teach you the basics about how to analyze literary texts. We also want you to try your hand at writing--because we always learn better when we try our hands at doing things ourselves, don't you agree?

So we'd love you to write poems or short short stories and share them with the whole group on this course blog. But on one condition: that your texts deal with the pandemic, how it's affected you personally or someone close to you, or how it's affecting the world, if that is what you prefer to focus on.

As an example of what we're asking you to contribute, I'm copying below a poem entitled "Harbour" by Black British author Grace Nichols. Hope you like her poem, and hope we'll soon have the chance to read YOUR contributions to the blog!

All the best,

Carolina Fernández

“Harbour”    (Grace Nichols, May 2020)

 

When it’s all over and hopefully it will be over,

I’ll probably look back and miss

this strange web of our togetherness –

 

The impromptu arias at windows

and balconies, the orchestras of pots

and pans and hands beating a metronome

 

Of gratitude to keep airborne

the spirits of our nurses, doctors,

all our care-workers –

 

The live streaming of ballet dancers

pirouetting trickily around their children,

now like everyone at home –

 

All the WhatsApp calls and video links

from friends and relatives, my daughters’ faces

surfacing on the small sky of my mobile –

 

Yes, the virtual world can console.

But watch how easily I’ll trade it -

for the simple harbour of a hug.

 

This poem is taken from Carol Ann Duffy and Manchester Metropolitan University’s poetry project during the Coronavirus, “WRITE where we are NOW.”

 

Follow this link for more information and poems: https://www.mmu.ac.uk/write/

 

“Poetry can provide an opportunity for reflection and inspiration in these challenging times, as well as creating a living record of what is happening as seen through poets’ eyes.”