Octopus Museum, The: Poems

Informed as much by Brenda Shaughnessy's worst fears as a mother as they are by her superb craft as a poet , the poems in The Octopus Museum blaze forth from her pen: in these pages, we see that what was once a generalised fear for our children is now hyper-reasonable, specific, and multiple: school shootings, nuclear attack, loss of health care, a polluted planet. As Shaughnessy conjures our potential future, she movingly (and often with humour) envisions an age where cephalopods might rule over humankind, a fate she suggests we may just deserve after destroying their oceans. These heart-breaking, terrified poems are the battle cry of a woman who is fighting for the survival of the world she loves, and a stirring exhibition of who we are as a civilisation.