Dancing with Empty Prams

by Susan Austin, Jen Lorrimar-Shanks (Cover Art)

'This is a moving, involving account of a woman's fertility quest, and an inventive, carefully structured verse novel. The reader is drawn in to an emotional and physical ordeal across years of trying, miscarriage, and ultimately the gruelling IVF process. It voices an experience not often represented so thoroughly in literature - a lonely journey made more challenging by taboos, ignorance and prejudices.' Melinda Smith

244 pages, Paperback

Published April 8, 2023

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume, taken as a whole, provides compelling insight into an infertility journey. Each poem is distinct, and the narrative is formed by the holistic combination of these (which does move linearly through time). This allows a kaleidoscopic view of an experience. Through the poems, Austin gives each moment, emotion, or thought space to breathe, to be ambivalent or intensely felt. But the next poem can take us to a different space. It works remarkably well for conveying complexity, contradiction and the hugeness of such an experience.
The poems do various kinds of heavy lifting, from exposition to emotional clarity, and there are inevitable bumpy patches. Still, some of the more outstanding entries, including Intimacy and Invisible Undercurrent, capture perfectly a moment in time.
I felt quite drained by the end, which I think is partly the point. We are still emerging in the literature that values, explores and shares women-centred experiences, especially such embodied ones, and I think this is a significant contribution to that body of work.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is a friend of mine and I'm very impressed with what Susan has achieved here. I loved her first poetry book, Undertow. Susan has a wonderful way of choosing words and stringing them together to convey her message. Her effective use of metaphor makes for wonderful reading. This book gave me great insight to the challenges that some couples have when trying to conceive a baby. This was the first verse novel I have read. I'm giving it a four, as I did wish for one or more other threads in the story, but maybe that is not practical in a verse novel such as this. I'll have to talk to her about it. I'm really looking forward to seeing where Susan goes with her writing next. Congratulations, Susan!