The Octopus Museum: Poems

Now in paperback, this collection of bold and scathingly beautiful feminist poems imagines what comes after our current age of environmental destruction, racism, sexism, and divisive politics.

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 generalized 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 humor) envisions an age where cephalopods might rule over humankind, a fate she suggests we may just deserve after destroying their oceans. These heartbreaking, 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 civilization.

Author: Brenda Shaughnessy
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 06/29/2021
Pages: 96
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.80w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9781524711498
ISBN10: 1524711497
BISAC Categories:
- Poetry | Women Authors
- Poetry | Subjects & Themes | Love & Erotica
- Poetry | American | General

About the Author
BRENDA SHAUGHNESSY is the author of five books of poetry, the recipient of a 2018 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Newark. She lives with her family in New Jersey.