Books Books
Category: Ebooks, Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 72
ISBN: 9781781727102
Publication date: July 17, 2023
Price: £9.99
Category: Ebooks, Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 72
ISBN: 9781781727119
Publication date: July 15, 2023
Price: £7.99
Out of stock
“This book is an astonishing and totally life-enhancing achievement.” – Bernard O’Donoghue
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.
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.’
Praise for Octopus Mind (read more under reviews below)
“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
Rachel Carney
Rachel Carney is a Cardiff based poet, visual artist, creative writing tutor and academic. Her debut collection Octopus Mind was selected as one of The Guardian’s Best Poetry Books of 2023. She worked in museum learning, research and community engagement for several years, and recently completed a PhD, examining how ekphrastic poetry can enrich our engagement with art in museums. She currently teaches at Cardiff University and Swansea University. Her poems, articles and reviews have been published in numerous magazines including Poetry Wales, Envoi, Under the Radar, New Welsh Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Poetry Saltzburg Review and Acumen. Some of her poems have been translated into Italian and Romanian. In 2021 she won the Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Competition, came 2nd in the Bangor Poetry Competition and was highly commended in the Liverpool Poetry Prize. She’s also had two poems shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, and one poem nominated for the Forward Prize, as well as being placed in several other competitions. She blogs at createdtoread.com.
Photo credit Suzie Larke.
“…an inventive, often playful, outwardly-engaged collection which repays repeated reading.”
D. A. Prince, The High Window
‘…incredibly rich and refreshing. A wonderful collection’
Buzz Magazine
“Long before there were diagnoses and words like dyspraxia and neurodivergent, poetry was showing that difference, far from being a problem, is the wellspring of the imagination. These poems, with their verve and vividness, teach us that all over again.”
Matthew Francis
“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
“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
“Carney invokes the power of words to nurture compassion and healing, making for a welcome and timely debut.”
Carrie Etter
“With grace, thoughtfulness and often humour these poems open out beyond case history into the field of shared experience with which most readers will be bound to empathise.”
Philip Gross
“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
