Reading Covid poetry: A cognitive modal grammar account

Paul Simpson’s modal grammar (1993) is one of the most useful and best used stylistic frameworks of point of view in literary fiction, and its influence is evident in studies of narrative perspective (see Neary, 2023 for an overview), pedagogical applications (e.g. Simpson, 2025; Giovanelli, 2018a), and as the basis for other theories and methods (e.g. Gavins, 2005). This chapter analyses Jackie Kay’s poem ‘Where are my keys?’ — taken from New Poems in Response to Covid-19, a collection of poems posted online by Kay during the Covid-19 pandemic — via a reframing of Simpson’s model through the lens of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 1987, 1991, 2008). Through the practice of stylistic analysis, the chapter successfully shows how Simpson’ s original taxonomy operates in a way that aligns with our current best understanding of the relationship between language and the mind.