Pre-Owned Octopus Mind (Paperback)

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. They offer a window on the challenges of dyspraxia, but they also reveal its gifts: creativity, empathy, and seeing the world anew. Exploring the impetus for the making of art is a strand throughout the collection, as 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. Dyspraxia is represented by a series of artefacts in a museum, abstract swirls, trees, sand, sprouts, and a fountain of glass. Most important of all is the ‘ Octopus Mind’ , an image that aptly conveys the narrator’ s neurodivergence. The speaker in Octopus Mind is endearingly humble as we journey with them beyond self-criticism to reclaiming the self. In ‘ Growing into Myself’ , the narrator declares ‘ I will grow // into myself, climbing, steady, / grip by grip, leaf by leaf’ . Some poems explore the surprise of the diagnosis and the reverberations in the narrator’ s life, while others examine tricks of the mind through obsession, self-deception, realisation, and acceptance. In ‘ Understood’ the narrator describes the complex process of re-imagining one’ s place in the world: ‘ Slowly, we adjust / our own soft ignorance / unroll our prejudice / in gentle waves.’