Global lockdowns to contain coronavirus caused deepest recession since Great Depression, shuttering businesses and eliminating jobs while governments deployed unprecedented fiscal stimulus and monetary easing. Pandemic exposed essential workers' vulnerability and care economy's undervaluation alongside digital infrastructure's centrality. Recovery trajectories diverged sharply between vaccinated Global North and vaccine-deprived Global South.

Lockdown poetry proliferated through Zoom readings and Instagram posts as isolated individuals sought connection through shared verse documenting grief, boredom, and resilience. Essential worker poets gained visibility as pandemic revealed labor hierarchies previously invisible in cultural prestige economies. Virtual literary events democratized access geographically while raising questions about embodied community's irreplaceability in poetic culture.