WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.440 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:04.960 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:09.360 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:16.300 align:middle line:84% This next poem, as Tyler mentioned this in the intro, 00:00:16.300 --> 00:00:19.700 align:middle line:84% it's not unique in this way, in this country, or this world, 00:00:19.700 --> 00:00:23.320 align:middle line:84% but we were hit very heavily by the opioid crisis 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:25.280 align:middle line:90% in Knox County. 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:27.920 align:middle line:84% And I read this book called Dreamland 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:35.200 align:middle line:84% by Sam Quinones, who took as a case study, the Southern Ohio 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:40.920 align:middle line:84% town of Portsmouth and describes how these pill mill towns got 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:45.277 align:middle line:84% set up and unraveled what were otherwise thriving communities. 00:00:45.277 --> 00:00:47.360 align:middle line:84% It's grim reading, but I would recommend the book, 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:52.440 align:middle line:84% just to understand how we got to where we are. 00:00:52.440 --> 00:00:56.400 align:middle line:84% And so I read the book, and then I see some announcement 00:00:56.400 --> 00:00:59.280 align:middle line:84% for a community meeting in just a couple towns 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:02.820 align:middle line:84% over from where I live in Gambier, in Danville, Ohio. 00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:05.800 align:middle line:84% And I saw that they were zooming in Sam Quinones 00:01:05.800 --> 00:01:10.780 align:middle line:84% to talk about the book and talk about Ohio's crisis, 00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:11.692 align:middle line:90% in particular. 00:01:11.692 --> 00:01:13.400 align:middle line:84% And so I thought, oh, I've read the book. 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:15.360 align:middle line:90% It's only a couple towns over. 00:01:15.360 --> 00:01:17.083 align:middle line:90% I'll go to the meeting. 00:01:17.083 --> 00:01:19.500 align:middle line:84% And so I go, and there's a discussion with Quinones, which 00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:21.660 align:middle line:84% was really great, but there was also 00:01:21.660 --> 00:01:24.500 align:middle line:84% testimonials by Knox County police officers 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:27.980 align:middle line:90% about their experience. 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:31.700 align:middle line:84% And I had never really spoken to police officers 00:01:31.700 --> 00:01:34.620 align:middle line:84% outside of their official duties. 00:01:34.620 --> 00:01:39.000 align:middle line:90% And I found it very evocative. 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.980 align:middle line:84% They were clearly very haunted and shaken. 00:01:41.980 --> 00:01:44.723 align:middle line:84% And they were like, I signed up for this job 00:01:44.723 --> 00:01:46.140 align:middle line:84% that-- they were saying, the worst 00:01:46.140 --> 00:01:48.595 align:middle line:84% thing we've ever really seen would be domestic violence. 00:01:48.595 --> 00:01:50.220 align:middle line:84% And now we're walking into these houses 00:01:50.220 --> 00:01:54.020 align:middle line:84% and there's eight bodies that are seemingly deceased 00:01:54.020 --> 00:01:56.100 align:middle line:84% but are overdosed and administered 00:01:56.100 --> 00:01:58.120 align:middle line:90% Narcan and then revived. 00:01:58.120 --> 00:02:00.820 align:middle line:84% But they seemed quite traumatized 00:02:00.820 --> 00:02:03.840 align:middle line:84% by the whole thing, which was not the side of trauma 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:07.420 align:middle line:84% that I was used to thinking about the police existing on. 00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:10.560 align:middle line:90% So I was thinking about that. 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:14.840 align:middle line:84% And one of my favorite poems to teach is Sylvia Plath's "Lady 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:20.040 align:middle line:90% Lazarus" for how extreme it is. 00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:22.200 align:middle line:84% So I went to that meeting, and I went home 00:02:22.200 --> 00:02:23.960 align:middle line:84% and I'm grading a stack of papers 00:02:23.960 --> 00:02:26.702 align:middle line:84% that I had assigned to my students about Lady Lazarus. 00:02:26.702 --> 00:02:28.160 align:middle line:84% So I put those two things together, 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:31.460 align:middle line:84% and it became this poem, "Not a Mile." 00:02:31.460 --> 00:02:35.240 align:middle line:90% 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:39.040 align:middle line:84% Not a mile from where my students asked me 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:46.240 align:middle line:84% why Sylvia Plath wanted to eat men, two men overdose. 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:50.040 align:middle line:84% This is rural Ohio, and the new drugs from Columbus 00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:53.960 align:middle line:84% are cut with elephant tranquilizers. 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:57.560 align:middle line:90% The police are nurses now. 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:00.960 align:middle line:90% They don't dream. 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:04.770 align:middle line:84% My students try to understand why the voice in the poem 00:03:04.770 --> 00:03:09.250 align:middle line:84% brags about death but never dies. 00:03:09.250 --> 00:03:13.170 align:middle line:84% Not a mile from here, two men regain consciousness 00:03:13.170 --> 00:03:17.890 align:middle line:84% in their living room, full of litter boxes and Optimos. 00:03:17.890 --> 00:03:22.970 align:middle line:84% They are not particularly scared by the police or their IVs. 00:03:22.970 --> 00:03:28.650 align:middle line:84% They have both died before and been revived with Narcan. 00:03:28.650 --> 00:03:32.690 align:middle line:84% It's November 6th and the sky has been blank for so long its 00:03:32.690 --> 00:03:36.050 align:middle line:90% emptiness has turned supple. 00:03:36.050 --> 00:03:41.090 align:middle line:84% The men refuse further medical treatment. 00:03:41.090 --> 00:03:46.050 align:middle line:84% One dumps a baggie of crickets into a lizard tank. 00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:48.930 align:middle line:84% My students are sincerely trying to analyze 00:03:48.930 --> 00:03:55.210 align:middle line:84% death, its cadence, and anaphora, its German origins. 00:03:55.210 --> 00:04:01.410 align:middle line:84% The police do not know how to speak to my students. 00:04:01.410 --> 00:04:03.770 align:middle line:84% They bark and lord over a scuffle 00:04:03.770 --> 00:04:06.150 align:middle line:84% or jaywalking because they are used 00:04:06.150 --> 00:04:09.030 align:middle line:84% to hauling the dead back to life and fishing names 00:04:09.030 --> 00:04:12.150 align:middle line:90% out of their mouths. 00:04:12.150 --> 00:04:15.630 align:middle line:84% They cannot help but see everyone as needing to be saved 00:04:15.630 --> 00:04:19.149 align:middle line:90% by force. 00:04:19.149 --> 00:04:21.110 align:middle line:84% Not a mile from where my students show 00:04:21.110 --> 00:04:22.870 align:middle line:84% me outlines of what they are trying 00:04:22.870 --> 00:04:25.910 align:middle line:84% to say about resurrection, one of the men 00:04:25.910 --> 00:04:32.030 align:middle line:84% pulls a phone out of his mesh shorts and calls Columbus. 00:04:32.030 --> 00:04:37.110 align:middle line:84% My students worry they cannot explain where Plath ends 00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:40.430 align:middle line:90% and death begins. 00:04:40.430 --> 00:04:43.230 align:middle line:84% Not a mile from our classroom, men 00:04:43.230 --> 00:04:47.350 align:middle line:90% dissolve like powder in water. 00:04:47.350 --> 00:04:51.670 align:middle line:90% Men so close we can't see them. 00:04:51.670 --> 00:04:53.610 align:middle line:90% Men like air. 00:04:53.610 --> 00:05:00.144 align:middle line:90% 00:05:00.144 --> 00:05:01.602 align:middle line:84% And if you know that poem, you know 00:05:01.602 --> 00:05:08.000 align:middle line:84% that I stole her ending, that iconic ending.