Brenda Shaughnessy

I'd put this book on my want-to-read list so long ago that I couldn't remember anything about why I had wanted it. But I was scrolling the list while putting together a book order and the cover caught my eye — so I finally ordered it to find out.

I still don't remember where I'd heard of this, but everything about the title and premise fo the collection is such a direct hit to my interests: humans have fucked up so badly that the cephalopods have taken over — and these poems are exhibits in a museum of how/why we lost the right to govern ourselves. Filled with a parent's anxiety about environmental destruction, police brutality, consumer capitalism, all the hurts and injustices in this world we bring our children into. It's also full of longing — for opportunities missed, for moments romanticized by nostalgia, for children to have all the good stuff, for there to be no tradeoffs.

I quite loved this.… (more)