Chapter 89: What to Write After Another School Shooting – Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The poem opens with the speaker beginning a message to her daughter’s teacher after another school shooting. The speaker types the phrase “oh my god” but cannot continue. She pictures the teacher shielding her own daughter while the teacher’s infant son sleeps at home. The speaker writes “thank you” then deletes it, writes “I’ve been thinking of you” and deletes it, then writes “shit shit shit” and tries not to delete. The teacher is currently reviewing division with the children. The speaker writes “I am so sorry” in the subject line, then imagines a child being buried not far from the school. The poem ends with three repetitions of “delete, delete, delete.”
Key Events
- The speaker begins an email to her daughter’s teacher.
- She imagines the teacher physically protecting her daughter during an active shooting.
- The speaker repeatedly writes and deletes short phrases.
- She visualizes a burial happening nearby.
- The poem concludes with the act of deletion.
Character Development
- The Speaker: The poem captures a parent in the immediate aftermath of a school shooting. Her inability to craft a coherent message shows profound grief and helplessness. The repeated deletions reveal a mind overwhelmed by fear and sorrow.
- Daughter’s Teacher: Though not directly speaking, the teacher is portrayed as a protector who risks her life for students while her own baby is at home. This duality deepens the emotional weight of the speaker’s words.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- The Inadequacy of Language: Every attempt to articulate emotion is erased. The speaker cannot find words adequate to the horror, so she falls back on visceral exclamations (“shit shit shit”) and then silence.
- Motherhood and Protective Instinct: The speaker’s empathy for the teacher (imagining her body over her daughter, thinking of her son at home) highlights how a mother’s fear ripples outward.
- Deletion as a Motif: The act of deleting mirrors the erasure of life caused by gun violence. It also represents the speaker’s refusal to settle for a trite or insufficient response.
- The Ordinary Vs. The Horrific: The teacher is “reviewing division” – a mundane classroom activity – while the speaker knows a child is being buried. This contrast underscores the surreal gap between everyday life and tragedy.
Why This Chapter Matters
This short poem encapsulates a universal experience of helplessness in the face of school shootings. By focusing on the simple act of composing an email, Baer shows how grief short-circuits normal communication. The poem resists easy resolution or closure – it ends with deletion, not a sent message. It belongs in the collection because it turns a private moment of paralysis into a public testament to the cumulative trauma of gun violence in America. Readers are left with the haunting tension between the urge to speak and the impossibility of saying enough.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does the speaker repeatedly delete her attempts to write to the teacher?
The speaker deletes because no phrase seems adequate. She cycles through shock (“oh my god”), gratitude (“thank you”), concern (“I’ve been thinking of you”), and anger (“shit shit shit”). Each attempt either feels too small, too cliché, or too raw. Deletion becomes a gesture of refusal – she will not reduce the tragedy to a neat sentiment.
2. What is the significance of the detail that the teacher’s infant son is sleeping at home?
It amplifies the teacher’s sacrifice. While protecting the speaker’s daughter at school, the teacher’s own baby is vulnerable elsewhere. The image reminds readers that the teacher is not just a professional but a mother herself, and that the crisis affects multiple families simultaneously.
3. How does the structure of the poem mirror its content?
The poem’s fragmented lines and repetitive deletions mirror the speaker’s fractured thoughts. The final “delete, delete, delete” mirrors the cyclical nature of school shootings and the community’s recurring trauma. By ending without resolution, the structure reinforces that the horror cannot be neatly concluded.