In which Graham Barnhart, poet and US Army veteran, discusses the paradox of being an army medic—“You carry a rifle and an aid bag full of medical supplies to treat the people you’re potentially expected to shoot”; and the capacity of poetry to contain that paradox without limiting it: “How do I communicate what feels like a personal experience without ignoring the violence and oppression of the machine I’m a part of that allowed me to receive that experience, even providing medical care as a way of pursuing the war?”