Python Love

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.

• Arguing with No One1.Bedrest LamentPython LoveThe Books SaidTidal Pools with My MotherPermeable MembraneOn the Pacific Coast with My FatherHand in Hand, We Brought Back the GroundMaze Masquerading as a Mangrove ForestThe Woman Beneath the SheetBlue and Pink Bottles Representing Children2.The Same Yellow Tiled Walls3.Windless SeaChild’s PlayCluesCar WashReckoningGet AwaySwamp WadingTickle AttackWhen My Daughter Turned EightGod4.Fallen Horseman5.ApolloFatu HivaBetween UsThe Bridge Between the MountainsI Have Passed ThroughLichen SclerosisThe Stone the Builders RejectedAnimal, MisunderstoodWild IrisQuiet, rarely6.Alive. Intact. Unharmed.Acknowledgements

"'I remember…becoming one of the machines,' Shannon Arntfield writes in her steely debut collection, an exploration of the brutal sides of medicine and motherhood, where trauma conspires to short-circuit the present. Python Love is a compassionate lament for living in a body that says no." Monica Kidd, author of Chance Encounters with Wild Animals