"In February, as a plague enters America, I am a finalist for a job I am not offered."

I learned English first (American), but I don't understand grammar well enough to explain what language rules were broken. I hate when ESL friends ask about this. In Chinese they don't really modify the verb words, they just add other words. Does anyone ever break rules in Spanish for poetry? I don't know.

This author uses present tenses to talk about the past. Is it hopeless or deterministic? I'm curious.