Choice Lines, Or [ ]

Background: In their editorial to the Prose Poetry issue of ‘Rabbit’ (2017) Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington state that the prose poem embodies ‘the sorts of hybridity that address the fluidity and coming-into-beingness of the contemporary moment’. In ‘Prose Poetry: An Introduction’ (Princeton UP 2020) Atherton and Hetherington suggest that ‘prose’ within a prose poem ‘becomes a revitalized medium that focuses less on a narrative’s progress’ and more on how ‘language itself, and its ways of making meaning, may be understood newly and differently.’ In the wake of the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the US in 2022, this creative work deploys the capabilities of the prose poem to address themes of reproductive rights and self-determination, and to resist the logics of patriarchal domination and coerciveness. Contribution: Through the combination of compressed narrative prose and poetic techniques (juxtaposition, metaphor, imagery, gaps/space), this long prose poem explores the creative possibilities that arise when subjects have the freedom to choose the narrative for their own bodies. As with the prose poem’s refusal to present a contained, straightforward or singular narrative, the subject identifies the fact of a difficult choice, yet is grateful for that choice in a world that threatens/thwarts such choices for women. The prose poem is offered as a space in which state control over women’s bodies (and narratives) can be resisted. Significance: This work was selected for publication within Counterspace, a special section of international, interdisciplinary journal Psychoanalysis Culture & Society (est. 1996). The journal explores the intersections between psychoanalysis and the social world and Counterspace ‘offers a specific invitation to emergent, innovative, and critical writing that addresses the journal’s mission’. The editorial and advisory boards are constituted of leading international specialists in the fields of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.