On April 20, 2020, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures crashed to negative $37.63 per barrel, the first time in history that oil prices had fallen below zero. The collapse was driven by the collapse in global demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, and a lack of storage capacity. The event sent shockwaves through energy markets, leading to widespread bankruptcies and job losses in the oil sector.

The negative oil price event became a symbol of the unprecedented economic dislocation caused by the pandemic, inspiring a wave of poetry and literature that grappled with the collapse of normalcy. Poets around the world wrote about the surreal nature of the crisis, using the oil crash as a metaphor for the fragility of the global economy and the need for a new relationship with the natural world.