Based on original reporting from West Africa and the United States, and the poet 's experiences as a doctor and journalist, If God Is A Virus charts the course of the largest and deadliest Ebola epidemic in history, telling the stories of Ebola survivors, outbreak responders, journalists and the virus itself. Documentary poems explore which human lives are valued, how editorial decisions are weighed, what role the aid industrial complex plays in crises, and how medical myths and rumor can travel faster than microbes.
These poems also give voice to the virus. Eight percent of the human genome is inherited from viruses and the human placenta would not exist without a gene descended from a virus. If God Is A Virus reimagines viruses as givers of life and even authors of a viral-human self-help book.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 6, 2021 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781642594805
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781642594805
- File size: 2433 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 1, 2021
Yasmin, author of Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them (2021), draws on her remarkable experiences as a physician, Emmy Award-winning journalist, and Epidemic Intelligence Service investigator in this stunningly forthright, inventive, and timely poetry collection. Using the language of medicine to forge a searing poetics of protest laced with indicting wit, she calls out the myriad forms of racism and sexism, and Islamophobia and homophobia endemic in health care, from personal confrontations to systemic inequities. She mocks inadequate efforts to combat highly contagious viruses and chides anti-vaxxers. One visual (or concrete) poem is titled "Self-Portrait as Virus," and in one iteration of the title poem she informs us that "We are literal cousins of pathogens / wretched offspring of pandemics." Her clinical descriptions of the ravages of viral diseases are utterly unnerving, but she is also mordantly funny, as in "A Virus Pens a Self-Help Book." Scalpel-sharp and unflinching, Yasmin ponders adaptation and mutation, dispassion versus compassion, and criminal medical biases and neglect, forging a whole new meaning for antibody as we continue to struggle with COVID-19.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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