Defender of the Citrus

What does it mean to survive a pandemic? When the outside world turns lethal, how do we adapt to this new reality? In Defender of the Citrus, award-winning poet Benjamin Morris offers an intimate account of navigating the COVID years in New Orleans, Louisiana, a city where the party never learned how to stop. Yet this is no ordinary memoir: as lockdown sets in, Morris writes as an immune patient (at heightened risk of the virus), a carpenter and new homeowner (of a ramshackle fixer-upper), a fledgling citrus farmer (of five finicky young trees), and most of all, a new parent—of an unforgettable rescue cat named Snickers, a feisty yet loving tortoiseshell who soon becomes the only thing he can trust in an uncertain and dangerous new world. Finding beauty amid isolation, solace in sawdust, and abundance among thorns, Defender of the Citrus is a profound meditation on a journey whose end seemed to elude us all. Keenly observed with a poet’s eye, and fearless in its exploration of silence, memory, and loss, this book is a must-read for anyone who weathered those years searching not just for faith and hope, but for something deeper still—with or without a companion at their side.