Pity all the words in the dictionary competing to be prominent
and relevant—the envy they must be feeling when one
of their own goes from relative obscurity to superstar-word status.
Others are trying to ride on the coattails of unprecedented—
trying to send that upstart down the slippery page—
uncharted thinks it has a chance, surreal is quietly confident,
apocalyptic knows it already had a presence in literature,
long before the now trending ‘unp…’ word flew off every
journalist’s tongue, one five-letter word is more than confident
it has already won the race, with or without corona,
virus is preparing to be written in bold, most likely in capitals
in dictionaries of the future, though that pesky pandemic
won’t give up without a fight.
Joan Fenney’s award-winning poems have been published in anthologies, newspapers, and journals throughout Australia. Joan has published three collections of poetry with Ginninderra Press including Marilyn Monroe by the Brooklyn Bridge and other Portraits, and she has edited two anthologies, Wild and Mountain Secrets, featuring the work of Australian poets. She is currently editing The Crow, a new quarterly journal for South Australian poets.