Vasectomy: An Incision in Parts is a narrative poem that fearlessly presents the stark demands that society places on the female body in terms of reproduction & birth control. Agency for women is intrinsically tied to our ability to secure our reproduction, which can come at great physical cost.
Caballero’s writing explores how biology delimits our cultural rites. She approaches the intersection of society & animality from a distinctly female perspective, seeking to rip the veil off of romanticized pregnancy & motherhood—particularly notions that package female sacrifice as a virtue.
Her poems’ speakers find their voice by navigating the intellectual & the everyday, daring to name what’s left unsaid in that all-important space of home.
This work questions the unequal weight placed by society on the female body, in terms of reproduction and birth control. Resistance is found in the act of poetic and artistic expression.
Vasectomy is a hermit poem—a text that borrows a non-literary format and transforms it into a poetic form.
Caballero used the scientific method as structure for this longform narrative poem, underscoring the impossibility of quantifying human interactions and the functioning of the body, despite our best attempts to map out lived experiences.
This work won a Sevens Foundation Grant and was published as a digital poem by Playboy.