notes from this city

Published in English translation, “notes from this city” by Estonian poet and translator Carolina Pihelgas is a prose poem written in lower-case that delves into a locked-down city. The unnamed first-person speaker vividly portrays its emptiness, resembling a “prehistoric beast” with its skeletal structure protruding from the riverside vegetation and buildings. The city relies on human activity for sustenance, highlighting its vulnerability. As the pandemic progresses, the everyday rituals become obsolete: “the traffic lights blink yellow, empty city buses circulate along lanes painted on the streets, seeming to follow some long-forgotten rituals, the meaning of which no one knows any longer. and yet it seems so important, that movement, repetition” (Pihelgas). The yellow traffic lights symbolize the quarantine state, allowing neither progress nor a complete halt. The city loses meaning without its inhabitants, who are trapped within their homes and internal worlds. The confinement brings forth a fusion of boredom and existential dread, as fear approaches the speaker like “an animal that can pass through walls” and “stares at [her] dully” (Pihelgas). Pihelgas captures the early pandemic period, where lockdown protocols disrupt the pre-pandemic rituals, leaving the world trapped in hollow repetition.