For the Record is a book-length poem whose word count is set to the number of lives lost to COVID-19 in Alberta, the author's home province in Canada-which at the time of publishing sits at 7,113 people. Told in two parts, with each section recording real-time headlines, the book begins with the first COVID-related death of Cargill meat factory worker Bui Thi Hiep. But the poem that cannot truly end does try to end with the hope embodied in the birth of Patel's first nephew, weaving the overlapping narratives of life in precarious, unprecedented times with the bracketing of political negligence, Formula 1 racing, and gig work as an artist. In For the Record, Patel wants us to remember the ordinary days and the extraordinary grief, as well as the monumental potential for hope, care, and empathy in our communities that COVID-19 teaches us as we continue to live through the ongoing crisis borne of and from a mass pandemic.
