Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
If God Is a Virus
If God Is a Virus | Seema Yasmin
4 posts | 1 read
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.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
quote
Bertha_Mason
If God Is a Virus | Seema Yasmin

"—and the prime minister will never say, / NHS / Zindabaad. In these dark cold days he / keeps / trying to starve it, keeps trying to starve us / under budget cuts, my cala‘s blood sweetens // arteries tense with austerity and rage. I / soothe her / with this story: in Amreeka the insulin / would cost / your left leg and kalima finger. Swallow / the bitter / pill, aunty, and plead with Allah: NHS / Zindabaad!"
-"NHS Zindabaad!"

quote
Bertha_Mason
If God Is a Virus | Seema Yasmin

"First, / my shopping bag splits then a jar of olives / smashes open. First, I look for help in other / faces, then I spear olives with my nails. / When I open my mouth long vowels betray / my mother‘s village. First, I ask for a new / bag. First, I plead forgiveness. A brown / figure makes a scene, a crouching woman / grabs at olives, a hijaabi picks up cracked / glass. Which one of them is me?"
-"Syndemics"

quote
Bertha_Mason
If God Is a Virus | Seema Yasmin
post image

-"If God Is a Virus" (3)

quote
Bertha_Mason
If God Is a Virus | Seema Yasmin
post image