from another forum

[indar]

I am participating in a weekly prompt on Poetry Circle. This weeks prompt is to decide on one day during this week, look it up on This Day in History and write about it. Strangely, that was my suggestion at the outset of this project and it couldn't have come up at a better time. I am off to celebrate but will be back to thank all for comments on previous posts.
 

• 1665 The number of deaths in London from the Great Plague during June is recorded as 6,137 people
  

On June 30 1942 I arrived
but I can't find a word about it
on any of those sites that remark
great historical events of the day.
Women born year of the horse,
are thought to be husband killers
in China and unmarriageable.
Born during the second world war,
a member of the silent generation,
actually I have a lot to tell you.
Vaccinations against smallpox
were mandatory in school
when I was young. They tried me
four times, three times in sixth grade,
nurses came to our classrooms.
But it never took: natural immunity.
Next we all were immunized
against polio. Iron lungs
have since been junked to the scrap heap.
No one who did not live through it
will ever know the fear. Oh Jonas Salk
what would you say if you could
join me on my 79th birthday
fully vaccinated against a virus
you never heard of. Would you now
be reviled for trying to cure the world
with your scientific miracle?

https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1665

 

[Colm Roe]

Timely indeed.
Jonas Salk could have made billions from his vaccine, but gave it to the world instead...what a man. You prompted me to investigate the man. The story of his (then) future father-in-law's attitude towards him is startling; the marriage would only be allowed when they could (at least) add M.D. to his name on the wedding invitations, and 'he must improve his "rather pedestrian status" by giving himself a middle name'
Attitudes have changed in the last 80 years, still a work in progress though, but I'm glad you've lost your 'silence'
I enjoyed this very much, thanks for sharing

[indar]

Thank you Colm, for the read and going the extra distance to read about Salk. It should also be noted that he also spent his very long career advocating for mandatory vaccination programs. I know smallpox was required to stay in school as noted in my "poem" (that might have been a state-by-state decision). I guess if someone feels their constitutional right or God-given freedom is being violated they could choose not to be or have their children vaccinated that's a choice they can make but the consequences would be what?? No public school education??? And to think other countries are begging for the vaccine, countries capable of producing their own but can't because of big pharma ownership.

[Dave]

I don't know why but it took quite a number of reads to align all the parts of this into a narrative. Once I manged it all made perfect and actually quite simple sense but at the beginning it seemed like several stories in one poem.

Perhaps it is the London fire and the opening line: I thought at first you had arrived in London in 1942 and I could not connect to 1665. Likewise I did not relate sites with the internet but rather real sites and in fact sites in London. The reference to China is syntactically inaccurate as I believe the poem says that wives born in the year of the horse are only husband killers in China whereas you mean that people in China think that women born in the year of the horse are husband killers. Slightly different .
 For me too the 'They tried me' is a weird expression - I know it is shorthand for they tried it ON ME, but still an ambiguous usage.


Having said all that an interesting and enjoyable narrative.

[indar]

Hi Dave,

I had to google the London fire: it was the year following the report of deaths from the plague I referenced as my prompt. That report given on 6/30/1665 was for the number of deaths during the month of June. I found that statistic when I looked up my birthday. So thats where I started. I chose that event among several because, well, here we are again. How would a vaccine have been accepted during the black plague I wonder.