Self-Driving

"Feminist and humanist, the vision here is both passionate and compassionate. It's a pageturner to be sure." --Kazim Ali

Betsy Fagin's self-driving, winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, selected by Kazim Ali, reimagines the American epic through the lens of a contemporary woman's journey.

Rooted in the tradition of the road trip narrative, Fagin's poems interrogate the foundations of freedom, representation, and privilege while dismantling romanticized myths of Western expansion and the cis, white, male-dominated tales of the open road. Through sharp, playful, and incisive verse, Fagin celebrates Black, queer, feminist presence and futures, confronting the erasures and delusions in America's frequently told stories.

Using images of the great American West and the highways that connect it, she charts a path through landscapes of disenfranchisement toward self-determination and agency. Throughout the collection, self-driving redefines freedom as both a state and a mindset. In a bold declaration, Fagin writes: "I knew my rights / were all the rights, my freedoms all the freedoms," embodying a call for expansive liberation. This collection is a powerful exploration of identity, impermanence, and the boundless possibilities of reimagined narratives.