Jackie Kay: Scotland’s national poet picks a poem to help us through lockdown

My way of staying sane is to make endless lists (sometimes, I even put on my to-do list something I have already done, just to have the satisfaction of ticking it off.)

This poem perfectly captures our time – somehow no amount of making lists, of trying to get some order into our lives, can avoid the “black hole” in this poem.

Imtiaz Dharker’s poems often move from the quotidian to the philosophical. Her mind takes everything in.

I imagine for all of us who are staying at home, though, the key to not going stir-crazy is to make a list of all the things you want to do, new things to learn, and create some kind of routine.

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Making Lists By Imtiaz Dharker

The best way to put

things in order is

to make a list.

The result of this

efficiency is that everything

is named, and given

an allotted place.

But I find, when I begin,

there are too many things,

starting from black holes

all the way to safety pins.

And of course the whole

of history is still there.

Just the fact that it has

already happened doesn’t mean

it has gone elsewhere.

It is sitting hunched

on people’s backs,

wedged in corners

and in cracks,

and has to be accounted for.

The future too.

But I must admit

the bigger issues interest

me less and less.

My list, as I move down in,

becomes domestic,

a litany of laundry

and of groceries.

These are the things

that preoccupy me.

The woman’s blouse is torn.

It is held together

with a safety pin.