Octopus Mind

by Rachel Carney

Rachel Carney’s 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, reflecting on the poet’s experience of being diagnosed with dyspraxia as an adult.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

Published October 9, 2023

Reviews

[Tôpher Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderously strange, lucidly off-kilter collection of poems that are written as if by someone living underwater. How dyspraxia effects her physicality and her thinking so that her work is magically skewed, showing our world from odd angles and, because of that, revealing elements of life lost to the more conventional view. Carney writes poems that cast you adrift, that you get lost in, reading and re-reading them, unable to get away because they have caught you. For me the poem ‘Absolution’ was a real tour de force about so much more than just tears that I was completely captivated by it. This is a quietly sensational book, with so many stunningly good poems, that I wanted to hold my breath forever.