In Their Own Words
Xuela Zhang on “Quarantine”
Quarantine
In this real, rolling, crisis
of justifiable abstractions,
loneliness overlapped
without violence.
The daylight,
as usual, faithful.
Occasionally a wind
refines a way of self-
possession. On our walks,
the air, separating the trees,
and the animals,
separating the grass
with the rush
of small entireties,
say listen,
you need not have noticed.
I think about the things
I need not have noticed—
the tidal over- and under-
estimations.
Reprinted from To Compare (Fonograf Editions, 2026) with permisison of the publisher.
On “Quarantine”
During the pandemic, I got the sense that I needed to know the world all over again, and all the noise and hubris in language.
I started to see that while words could be true or untrue, so much of our use of language was driven or triggered by loneliness—loneliness before it was channeled into understanding or misunderstanding, connection or conflict. Loneliness was eloquent. I started to see the loneliness not only in people but also in groups, countries, and even languages.
But what is loneliness? I guess loneliness, whatever it is, contributes to the feeling that how you relate to the world cannot be seen or proved, and what can be seen or proved does not address how you relate.
Poetry captures that frustration and perhaps also embodies that way of relating. It is important, and it is there: your entire body can feel and respond to it. Others might feel and respond to it too.
The acknowledgment of loneliness requires composition. It manifests in rhythm. I wanted this poem to magnify loneliness so that one might discern the space to breathe in it—through the use of line breaks, pauses, repetitions, and the management of syllables, their relations, and tone. Finally, concepts and bodies, both their longing and their mythical self-sufficiency.
