Via Us: Poems From Inside the Corona

Via Us is a collection of poems exploring the impact of COVID-19 on an individual and the society he exists in. The meaning and nature of love, in particular relation to parenthood and connections to one's children, is vital to the work. Questions of mortality are inevitably raised; reflections coloured by the virus as awareness of its presence grows. The writing struggles with isolation, but is also ecstatic with this same energy - connecting it to our era and its strangely separated, socially distanced, yet deeply shared mood. The goal is not just poetry, but a form of existential reportage enquiring into the day-to-day conditions of the world: journalism with an inner eye. It's a vision supported by photographs taken at the same time as each work was being written: a few images even initiate the drive to create a poem; most are taken to enhance what is developing, or has just been set down in words. With the exception of some handwritten works from a notebook, all poems and photos were developed on an iPhone 9 using Notes and Camera facilities. All poems were developed over a period of seven weeks, from early March till just after Easter in April 2020. All poems were written in the Inner West of Sydney. Via Us is a diary of this place and time.

Reactions to the Poems:

"The work here is just great. It's so terrific to hear a poet speaking with a real voice. Keep going, Mark. You are tuned into reality and it's gripping." - Robert Adamson, Net Needle, The Clean Dark, Canticles on the Skin

"In these mad times we are living in what feels like a 'soft temporary cage' where we're all trying to make sense of the world as mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, friends, lovers and strangers. In this painful yet extraordinarily tender collection, 'VIA US' the poet is stripped bare and stands before us wearing nothing but his humanity, his fears and his love. Using his pen as scalpel, Mark Mordue cuts carefully into the most tender parts of himself to express his fears, love and hope for his children and the world at large. He has nailed his inner world and we emerge the better for having entered it. In the absence of masks and hand sanitiser these poems bring our souls protection and a sense of hope that is desperately missing in these times. These poems feel like slow oxygen, like prayers (religious or non-religious), like lullabies, like love songs (or perhaps all three) and as I read them, I am walking the dark streets of the Inner West of Sydney with the poet at 4am. The poems are accompanied by a series of arresting images that bring even more poignancy to the work and their combination brings a quietness. A stillness. A dissipating of the noise. These poems offer themselves up to each of us asking nothing in return and remind us that, regardless of how stuffed full your garage may be of toilet paper, lentils and pasta, love is actually all that matters and it exists in each of us in abundance." -- ali whitelock, and my heart crumples like a coke can

"Looking at your poetry I see the 'universal' language of being the creator and father figure... poetry like yours, poetry of other figures I admire, as I read it a 'no matter where you go, there you are' feeling wells inside of me. It's the underlying sigh of our state of being." - Samuel Wagan Watson, Smoke Encrypted Whispers