Python Love weaves together experiences of childhood abuse, birth trauma, and recovery from the perspective of a medical doctor who is also a mother. In this debut collection of visceral originality, Shannon Arntfield delves into the many ways in which the body recalls what has been done to it. The terror and confusion of unexpected flashbacks is felt alongside the grip of labor contractions; a mother, near death during childbirth, shivers uncontrollably. Long, breathtaking sequences set within medical facilities during labour and delivery are juxtaposed with spare, lyrical reflections on ideas of memory, natural spaces, implicit love, and the relationships between parents and children. Full of precise observations and careful renderings, Python Love is focused on how the body and mind are inextricably linked, how the past can overwhelm and inform the present, and how recovery is tied to love and connection.

Shannon Arntfield is a second career trauma-informed therapist and poet who turned to writing and psychological care in response to her lived experience as a child-mother-daughter and obstetrician-gynecologist. Her writing explores the bodymind continuum, the transformative power of vulnerability, and the challenges and rewards of renegotiating trauma. Her debut chapbook is Fallen Horseman and individual poems have appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, PRISM International, The Antigonish Review, The Examined Life, and Snapdragon Journal. From 2004 to 2022, she trained and worked as an ob/gyn, caring for women across their reproductive lifetime. In this role, she became sensitized to the impact and prevalence of trauma—both in the lives of women and their families, and among caring professionals. In 2020, she chose to re-train in counseling to serve the needs of people affected by trauma. She lives in London, Ontario, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Attawandaron.

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