KENT, Ohio — 'Dear Vaccine,' a global vaccine poem, is a collaboration of Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. 


What You Need To Know

  • Dear Vaccine is a global vaccine poem project that invites anyone to submit a stanza online

  • The project has reached every U.S. state and more than 100 countries

  • The project is now a published book

The project allows people from across the globe to submit a stanza online about what the COVID-19 vaccine means to them. 

The project started in March 2021, shortly after the vaccine was made available to the public.

David Hassler, of the Wick Poetry Center, helped create the project. 

“People have used this project to make sense of what they have been through,” Hassler said. “The trauma, and to connect with one another, to read the voices of others on the page and share their own voice.” 

The poem has received contributions from 118 different countries as well as every state in the U.S. There are more than 23,000 submissions on its website.

“It somehow resonates with people because it asks them to connect their story to the larger global story and the voices of others,” Hassler said. 

The project that started online was published into a book: Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic. 

“This book has grown out of a, perhaps a collective wisdom that has accumulated in our own culture,” Hassler said.

The book features more than 150 poetry submissions from the website and an afterword by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. 

 “It actually feels a little uncanny, to produce a book so quickly,” Hassler said. “To rush it, to pull the manuscript together, and then to rush it into production and get it out there.”

A listing for the book may be found online.