Review of Blue Atlas by Susan Rich

When I first read the succinct phrase “a lyrical abortion narrative like no other” to describe Susan Rich’s Blue Atlas, I felt a dissonance and discomfort in the paring of “lyrical” and “abortion.” I also felt immediately drawn to the work because I knew that a poetry collection that ventures to linger on the sensitive subject of abortion would have to be complex. More than that, the poet and her poems would have to be brave to share such a personal narrative at a time when abortion, fertility, and miscarriage have become so publicly scrutinized and legally curbed. True to its tagline, Blue Atlas is like no other abortion narrative. That’s partly because no other poet that I know of has reflected on this subject for a book’s length. It’s also because these poems expand and universalize having/not having an abortion as one of many blurry choices young women have felt forced to make—by family, because of economic, racist, or cultural barriers, or by laws—at a young age, when they are just getting to know who they are in the world.

From the get-go, Blue Atlas braves the brutal reality and finality of abortion. The second poem “Arborist/Abortionist” speaks of “his steel tool severing / a quirk of a tree limb, / attached to the nub of a stubborn bud.” We also learn in this poem that the abortion, which happened over thirty years ago, “was procured by anxious relatives / who demanded / a disappearing trick—.” In this single poem the camera pulls back, the lens widens. We sense the panoramic repercussions this single experience will have on the speaker’s relationship with family, with the father of her unborn child and—most importantly, with herself. The adjacent poem “Metaphors,” acknowledges the complex “conundrum of choice/no choice” that launches this lyrical narrative.

The book is broken into seven sections, which, for a book this size, means these sections are fairly short. This gives the reader powerful moments of pause to absorb the emotionally striking words and stunning imagery that fill these poems and ends each section. For instance, the last poem of the fourth section “Apparitions,” where the speaker is surprised with “the new knowledge that / my body could outlast death— / might heal this deep, sharp sting.” Every poem, every section in Blue Atlas is masterfully crafted so that the reader sees the development of the poet’s deeper understanding of what happened to her at the time of the abortion.

But I don’t want to give perspective readers the impression that every poem in Blue Atlas hangs heavy on the subject of abortion. In fact, this collection is as much about abortion as it is about the poet courageously recalibrating her understanding of the past. In many poems she reclaims her participation in her past and her volition to live then and now. We learn of family dynamics that led to an older sister locking the then four-year-old poet “here in the rope-cold dark … trapped in the attic eaves.” We discover the volatile, unreliable partner who is “ready to be a father— /but not a husband.” We learn of generational trauma—“the history of my dead / great-aunts and second cousins murdered / in the old country … who hid months in garbage cans.” And in the poem “Weeping Glass,” we are invited to examine our own country’s history and to acknowledge the losses of Amadou Diallo, Brianna Taylor, George Floyd—“that we might transform the cracks to light.” Rich’s skill in expanding from the personal to the universal is part of what makes Blue Atlas such a multifaceted and courageous book.

One of the other remarkable aspects of Blue Atlas are the unique poetic forms scattered throughout the sections. For example, “Post-Abortion Questionnaire—Powered by Survey Monkey” and “Outline for Freshman Composition” and “Curriculum Vitae.” From the outset the titles and use of such frameworks give the impression of emotional distance. Yet it’s in these poems that the poet is most emotionally vulnerable and wrestles with the complexities of abortion in general and, of course, in her own experience of having a coerced abortion. What if “she didn’t make the choice but it was the right choice” or what if she could “go back and find [her] own way?” There are no conclusions, no correct answers. There are only possible conclusions: “Yes. No. Yes. No. / The abortion wars come, but do not go.” And there is the rumble of her own “Possible conclusion: mybodymybodymybodymybodymy/ bodymybomb—” (This line ends section two with another powerful punch!)

There are numerous moments in Blue Atlas where resilience and beauty override the haunting past. The language and scenery throughout this collection felt like I’d opened my windows wide to welcome in the world: A strange birthday dinner in the Sahara with a torn lace table cloth spread “lopsidedly over ginormous desert stone with no nourishment at all. / More like a ghost meal / readied for the afterlife.” A dreamlike visit to a Moroccan shop where “soap mixed from camel milk and night-blooming jasmine, almond blossom / and rose displayed next to black gels and potions.” I found the poem “Abeyance” especially striking in its language and metaphoric hand-dug ice coffin (part of Antarctic survival training), and placement near the end of the book. Here we witness a resurrection when “the next morning as she climbed up—solidly / alive, stunned by the machinery of her own body.” The experiences of the past are “lifted into a blue abeyance—beyond the self and climbing,” and we truly feel the poet’s endurance and transformation.

One final note about this “lyrical abortion narrative like no other”: Blue Atlas is indeed a narrative. That is, it tells a full and rich story. I recommend reading this book from the first poem to the last poem in the order they appear to experience the intricate structure and poetic echoes. Just as we feel the progressive resilience shining through in the poem “Crepe Myrtle,” there is the heartbreakingly honest line, “I should’ve kept the baby.” We feel the poet’s strength to admit regret and to grow with what could’ve been. At the center of the narrative (and the book) we are faced with “The Abortion Question” (a form inspired by Patricia Lockwood’s “The Rape Joke”) which says, “This is not an anti-abortion poem. No one will be killed with a 22-caliber rifle/as in the two women’s health clinics”, and this is not an anti-abortion book. It is a deeply personal mourning of the loss of a possible child and the lack of choice and power that young women in our country are bound to face. From start to finish, Blue Atlas bravely unfurls its complex story that builds from the roots of the past and celebrates all the possible branches of the future.