Teaching Guide: If God Is a Virus (Poems)

Essential Questions:

• What is the role of the poet, the journalist, and the scientist in society?
• How do poetry, journalism, and science connect, and how do they differ?
• How can journalism and science be used to propagate or combat forces such as white supremacy, colonialism, and patriarchy?

Reading Guide for Select Poems:

A selection of poems from If God Is a Virus are freely available here. This reading guide reproduces the ten available poems, along with a worksheet for each poem that will guide reflection on the content and form. Download the guide in PDF or Word format below, and purchase the complete collection from Haymarket Books here.

Introductory Lesson Plan:

This lesson introduces If God Is a Virus, a book of documentary poetry by Dr. Seema Yasmin that interrogates the worlds of journalism, medicine, international aid, and their intersections. Because the book stands at the intersections of poetry, journalism, and science, and critically examines the ethics of practicing each, educators in ELA, Social Studies, and Science classes (among others) will find an entry point in these poems.

Step 1. Create a Venn diagram with three circles, and label them: Journalism / Poetry / Science. Use your Venn diagram to brainstorm: What is the role of each of these in society? What needs do they serve? Consider how they differ, and how they overlap.

Step 2. Read the bio of Dr. Seema Yasmin, whose poetry book we will explore in this lesson. While you read, consider: How do you think the experiences listed in this bio might shape Dr. Yasmin’s poetry?

DR. SEEMA YASMIN is a science journalist, medical doctor, Kundiman Fiction Fellow, and Emerson Collective Fellow. As an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she investigated outbreaks in prisons, hospitals, border towns, and reservations. As a journalist, she covered epidemics of Zika, Ebola, and Covid-19, as well as public health crises of racism, gun violence, and gender violence. Born in George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, and raised in Hackney, East London, she lives in California where she is director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University.

Step 3. Read this brief introduction to the book:

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.

Step 4. Dr. Yasmin reported on the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and its aftermath; that reporting was part of what inspired her poems in If God Is a Virus. Use any knowledge you have of the Ebola outbreak, and your knowledge of more recent public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, to answer the following questions:

• What is the role of a doctor or scientist in a public health crisis—how can they help people?
• How can doctors and scientists harm people in a public health crisis? Can you think of any examples of how doctors or scientists have done harm?
• What is the role of a journalist in a public health crisis—how can they help people?
• How can journalists harm people in a public health crisis? Can you think of any specific examples of how journalists have done harm?

Step 5. Read “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Note that the title of the poem comes from a slogan of The New York Times, which has been printed in the newspaper since 1897. Discuss the following questions:

• What do you think it means when The New York Times claims to contain “all the news that’s fit to print”? Why might this be a problem, and how is the problem present in journalism as a field (not just in the Times)?
• This poem critiques several systems and stakeholders. List at least three. Then, identify and explain the line(s) that critique each one. Consider stakeholders such as: journalists; editors; news consumers; doctors; and international aid organizations.
• Return to your reflections on the role of doctors, scientists, and journalists. Does this poem add anything new to your understanding of how a doctor or scientist can help/harm people? What about how a journalist can help/harm people?

Step 6. Explore these themes in depth by engaging in the reading guide for If God Is a Virus, and the extension activities (see tabs above)

Extension 1. If God Is a Virus addresses many interconnected themes related to ethics, justice, and equity. Choose one or more themes below and explain how Dr. Yasmin addresses them in both the form and content of her poems.

• Disease
• Medicine
• Science communication
• Journalism and editorial judgement
• International aid
• Misinformation
• White supremacy
• Colonialism
• Patriarchy
• Migration
• Religion
• Language

Extension 2. “Ebola News Cento” is a cento formed from news reports about the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. Consider how the poem uses these lines to make a comment on public health crises and media coverage of them.

What is something you would like to communicate about the COVID-19 pandemic and/or media coverage of them? Visit the Pulitzer Center’s COVID-19 issue portal and collect lines and phrases from the headlines and stories you find there in order to craft your own “COVID-19 News Cento.”

Extension 3. “What They Hear When They Listen to Your Heart” presents a data table from an academic study as a poem. Consider why she chose the form she did to communicate this information, and what effect this choice has on you as a reader.

What is a statistic that has stuck with you? (It could be about anything!) Be sure to look it up to make sure a reliable source can confirm the information. Then, select or invent a form that you think will communicate the information contained in this statistic in the most interesting / effective way, and use that form to write a poem. Write a short author’s statement (about one paragraph) explaining why you chose this form, and what effect you hope it will have on your reader.

Extension 4. In “Hippocritic Oath,” the poet revises the Hippocratic Oath—the closest thing to a sacred text in medicine—in order to better reflect her own ethics. Choose a document that holds power or importance in your life, and annotate it so that it better reflects your own ethics, identity, and beliefs. (Here is another example, for your inspiration!)

Extension 5. Dr. Yasmin’s poems “Baby Sister Survives Ebola…” and “& Dies in Childbirth” tell a story of maternal mortality. Learn more about reproductive health care quality and access issues around the world by reading at least one of the following articles. Then, write a poem in the second person that addresses one of the people featured in the story you read, using “Baby Sister Survives Ebola…” for inspiration.

• “A Woman Survives Ebola but Not Pregnancy in Africa” by Seema Yasmin in Scientific American
• “In Poland, Midwives Play a Significant Role in Childbirth. In Texas? Not so Much.” by Marissa Evans in The Texas Tribune
• “Kashmir's Tribal Women Fight the Stigma of Birth Control” by Safina Nabi in Nikkei Asia
• “Reclaiming Her Space: Birthing Through a Pandemic” by Sarahbeth Maney in The San Francisco Chronicle
• “How to Make Abortion Great Again” by Anna Sussman in Harper’s Bazaar

Extension 1. “What They Hear When They Listen to Your Heart” features findings from a 2016 study of 418 white doctors and medical students and their (mis)perceptions of biological differences between Black and white patients.

Read at least one of the following news stories. Then, write a reflection that answers the following questions: What are some of the ways in which racism and systemic inequity show up in medicine and public health today? What is the role of the scientist, the journalist, and the poet in working toward greater equity?

• “Medical Inequality” by Linda Villarosa in The 1619 Project, a special issue of The New York Times Magazine
• “Vaccinations in Black and White: Is It Hesitancy or Racial Bias?” by Melba Newsome in The Charlotte Post
• “COVID-19 Data on Native Americans Is ‘a National Disgrace.’ This Scientist Is Fighting To Be Counted” by Lizzie Wade in Science
• “Black Chicagoans Struggle To Get Access To the COVID-19 Vaccine” by Kristen Schorsch in WBEZ 91.5

Extension 2. Many poems in If God Is a Virus, including “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and “Disease Is Not the Only Thing that Spreads,” address the shortcomings of international aid efforts, and the related concepts of colonialism and white supremacy. Research the international aid response to the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016, and write a reflection that responds to the following questions:

• What were some of the successes of the international aid response to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak?
• What were some of the failures of the response?
• What is the relationship between colonialism and international aid?
• How do you think the problems with international aid can be addressed?

Extension 3. Dr. Yasmin’s poems “Baby Sister Survives Ebola…” and “& Dies in Childbirth” tell a story of maternal mortality. Learn more about reproductive health care quality and access issues around the world by reading at least one of the following articles.

Briefly summarize the health care issue you read about, and some of its causes. Then, write a poem in the second person that addresses one of the people featured in the story you read, using “Baby Sister Survives Ebola…” for inspiration.

• “A Woman Survives Ebola but Not Pregnancy in Africa” by Seema Yasmin in Scientific American
• “In Poland, Midwives Play a Significant Role in Childbirth. In Texas? Not so Much.” by Marissa Evans in The Texas Tribune
• “Kashmir's Tribal Women Fight the Stigma of Birth Control” by Safina Nabi in Nikkei Asia
• “Reclaiming Her Space: Birthing Through a Pandemic” by Sarahbeth Maney in The San Francisco Chronicle
• “How to Make Abortion Great Again” by Anna Sussman in Harper’s Bazaar

Extension 4. “Filovirus Phylogenetic Tree” and “Self-Portrait as Virus” highlight the relationship between humans and viruses. (As Dr. Yasmin reminds us, “eight percent of the human genome is inherited from viruses and the human placenta would not exist without a gene descended from a virus.”)

Visit Nextstrain, an open-source pathogen evolution tracking project. Choose a virus that you feel some connection to or interest in. (Note: the COVID-19 dataset is very much in development and may be more difficult to navigate than other datasets.)

Once you have chosen a dataset, select “Color by: Country” in the menu at the left, and then zoom in on the phylogeny to see a more detailed phylogenetic tree of the virus in a geographic area that you are connected to or interested in.

Finally, draw the segment of the phylogeny you have selected on a piece of paper. Use it to write a poem, modeled on “Filovirus Phylogenetic Tree / Self-Portrait as Virus.” You can write from either of two perspectives:

• Write a poem about your personal evolution and/or where you come from.
• Write a poem from the perspective of the virus, telling its evolution story.