A few years ago, Paul Farmer asked me if he could include an excerpt of my poem, “Crown for a Young Marriage,” in the book he was writing about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. We couldn’t have known then how timely the lessons from his work fighting Ebola would prove. I’m deeply honored to have contributed to Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, now available from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Paul’s reflections on the structural failures that allowed for the outbreak’s unprecedented deadliness provide valuable insight into what’s happening right now in the United States and around the world. “Crown” precedes Paul’s encounter with one of the many women widowed by Ebola. This is truly a book for this moment, and I’m grateful to Paul for thinking of me.