Octopus Mind E-Book

Rachel Carney

• Herausgeber: Seren
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 38

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Octopus Mind plays with an array of rich and original metaphors to explore the intricacies of neurodiversity, perception and the human mind. These poems articulate the desire to understand and be understood by oneself and others in a complex world. They observe the nuances of creativity, art, relationships, and self-expression through the lens of neurodiversity, reflecting on the poet's experience of being diagnosed with dyspraxia as an adult. They delve into the challenges of neurodiversity, but also reveal its gifts. Poems respond to visual artists like Gwen John, whose paintings break new ground for women representing their own visions of themselves. Other poems suggest that this can be a struggle however, as Pablo Picasso paints not a woman but his own despair in 'Blue Nude', while Elizabeth Siddal reflects on her own image, fetishized by the Pre-Raphaelite painters, and Henri Rousseau's painting becomes an outlet for self-deception and frustration.  Some of the most stunning poems in this collection perform a kind of magic or sleight of hand, as dyspraxia is explored through unique and remarkable metaphors, including a series of artefacts in a museum, a walk along the seashore, and a swaying tree. The 'Octopus Mind' evokes the possibilities of what it means to be human, through obsession, self-deception, realisation, and acceptance. The speaker in Octopus Mind is endearingly humble and we journey with them beyond self-criticism to reclaiming the self. In 'Growing', the narrator declares 'I will grow // into myself, climbing, steady, / grip by grip, leaf by leaf'. In 'Understood' the narrator describes the complex process of re-imagining one's place in the world, armed with new knowledge: 'Slowly, we adjust / our own soft ignorance / unroll our prejudice / in gentle waves.'  "A poet of multiple uncanny self-portraits, of the 'octopus mind', who explores the gaps between mind and body, and body and world, with deft, diverse diagnoses."Damian Walford Davies "Extraordinary poems of self-encounter, of divergence, of bruised bodies out of balance with themselves, laid bare – and of new-found identities, and joyous release." Richard Marggraf Turley  "Rachel Carney's debut collection delights in its curiosity and surrealism. This is a collection that 'swims out into deep ocean currents' to explore the workings of the mind and the impacts of this on the self." Katherine Stansfield

Leseprobe

Octopus Mind

Soli Deo Gloria

Seren is the book imprint of

Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

Suite 6, 4 Derwen Road, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 1LH

www.serenbooks.com

facebook.com/SerenBooks

twitter@SerenBooks

The right of Rachel Carney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

© Rachel Carney, 2023

ISBN: 9781781727102

Ebook: 9781781727119

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Books Council of Wales.

Cover artwork: ‘Noor’ by Jason deCaires Taylor, 2021, Marine cement, 3m depth, Eco Musée de Cannes. All rights reserved, DACS/Armitage 2023.

Printed in Bembo by Severn, Gloucester

Contents

Apologies

Octopus Self

Danger

The clues were all there, strewn out along the shore

Diagnosis

Impressions

Understood

Blue Nude

Exposure

The Question

Unremarkable

Exhibits in the Museum of Dyspraxia

You See Yourself

Self-Portrait as Pieces of a Saint

Missing

Learning to Play

In the Playground

Balance

Growing

Turning Point

Fledge

Two Seconds of Silence

Dys

Absolution

Mine

Self-Portrait after a Party

Octopus Mind

I am trying not to write a poem about you

Paper Women

Hover

I half-close my eyes

You have become too much

eye / reflections

The Rattle

Normally

The Lie, Dyspraxia and The Background Hum

The Blather

Side Effects of Social Interaction

Self-Portrait with Words and Feathers

Careful

Dyspraxic

Hidden Disability

Post-Diagnosis

The ghost of hard work will be there, always

Nine Brains at Midnight

Sleep Paralysis

The Test

Our Bodies

Familiar, Divergent

Sorry

On Waking

Self-Portrait as a Neurodivergent Tree

Acknowledgments

Apologies

after Marcus Jackson

Pardon my curtains.

They are no longer speaking to each other,

but I can’t remember why.

I have left them open to the night –

staring at streetlights

and silence.

Pardon my circus.

It is drooping in the centre,

unwatched and unapplauded.

Pardon my mountain.

It is feeling

a little low today.

Pardon my starlings.

They are hungry, flighty

in the branches.

Pardon my muddy trainers.

One of them did not quite make it

to the shoe rack yesterday.

Pardon the piles of unread magazines,

the lack of trains in my station,

the confusion.

Pardon the waste food bin,

its stench emanating

from the kitchen floor.

Pardon the holes that appear when I’m not thinking,

the absentminded acrobats,

the grey tinge in the carpet.

Pardon the slow, wistful singing,

the sudden accident,

the yawning daffodils.

Pardon the missing persons,

the slip of waiting.

Pardon the universe you do not know.

Octopus Self

It took me years

    to tame the octopus of me,

                      to lure her out,

to show her that the world is safer than she thinks it is.

       I set her high up on a rock,

            where her colours merge and multiply.

Some days she basks in the shallows, content

with the strange shape of herself,

            coiling, uncoiling,    confident, serene.

Or she swims out into deep ocean currents,

       strong in her certainty, calm in her convictions.

Other days she cowers in the fissure of her lair,

sure that every shadow is a shark,

curled up around the bubble of her failure,

    peering out at life in all its magical abundance.

       That’s when the rest of me begins to lose its substance

       tossed about like flotsam on the surface of the ocean.

The octopus of me lets go of who she really is,

casting off a tentacle in wet despair.

    She watches, as it’s torn away from her.

And that’s when I must gather up the remnants of my second self,

and huddle down beside her.

       Together, we wait.

Danger

We were warned about the jellyfish,

where we paddled, tentatively,

in the shallows, our backs to the sun,

feet braced against the slap of wavelets,

eyes alert for anything globular,

for anything pale, or stringy.

And we were warned about the sinking sand –

sluggish, wet,

sucking at our shoes,

swallowing our shoes.

And the cliffs that might collapse at any moment,

that might crumble to dust

and bury us alive

in a heap of rock and fossils.

They warned us about the danger

of talking to strangers,

of strange men in nightclubs

offering to walk us home.

We were warned to say,

before we set off,

into the mountains,

which path we planned to take,

and exactly when we planned to return.