Rachel Carney, Octopus Mind
Octopus Mind, the debut poetry collection by Rachel Carney, is largely about the perplexing attempt to apprehend one’s own self. The poet watches, often in detached bewilderment, as the parts of herself take various shapes — sometimes creatures of land or sea; sometimes inanimate objects; sometimes strange unnameable entities, writhing and unfurling in front of her eyes. In one particularly arresting poem, the poet goes for a nasal swab test, only to discover that her nose is literally bleeding out miniature corpses of her past self.
Many of the poems in the collection capture these moments of vexed confrontation — not only between Carney and her many past and present selves, but also between Carney, a dyspraxic woman, and the neurotypical world. ‘Two Seconds of Silence,’ for instance, describes the poet’s frantic attempt to decode the words of the addressee, ‘to filter catch collate them to massage their possibilities into place,’ while they see nothing but a ‘blank stare.’
Carney is an academic at Cardiff University, whose research interrogates the intersections between museums and ekphrastic poetry (poetry written in response to art). It makes sense, then, that her creative work is similarly interested in the entwined perspectives of the spectator and the spectacle — the neurotypical observer and the neurodivergent subject; the museum exhibit and the museum visitor; the poet and the painting. Each poem plumbs the oceanic depths of what it means to see and be seen.
Amelia Stout: What was your upbringing like and what brought you to writing poetry?
Rachel Carney: I grew up in Sheffield and have always been keen on reading and writing from as far back as I can remember. My parents are both avid readers and the house was always full of books. I used to make up stories to tell my younger sister, even before I could write. I began submitting poems and short stories as a teenager and even began writing a novel, but did not meet with very much success.
AS: What is the backbone of your current research at Cardiff University?
RC: My PhD brings two of my passions together: ekphrastic poetry and museums. Having worked in museums for several years, I have observed the different ways in which museum staff attempt to engage their visitors. But I’ve also been that visitor myself – bored and unengaged on occasion; at other times, fascinated by what I see. I’ve seen numerous examples of museums using creative writing activities as part of their displays. But no-one had ever researched this form of engagement in detail. I wanted to find out how reading ekphrastic poetry and/or writing ekphrastic poetry can help us to engage with art.
AS: There are several ekphrastic poems in Octopus Mind. What excites you about the ekphrasistic medium as a poet?
RC: I originally became interested in ekphrasis while studying for my BA at Aberystwyth University, around seventeen years ago. I am fascinated by its dialogic nature. An ekphrastic poem creates a conversation between poet, artwork and reader, and also between multiple different pasts and presents. It works on so many different levels at the same time.
Octopus Mind is made up of poems on a range of different subjects, but what holds them together is the theme of perception. Some of these poems were written as part of my PhD research. I describe them as meta-ekphrastic, because they respond not just to a single work of art, but to the complex process of ekphrasis itself. For example, ‘Unremarkable’ was inspired by conversations with workshop participants, who were themselves writing ekphrastic poems in response to a painting by Gwen John. My poem is a response to their conversations, their poems and my own contemplation of Gwen John’s painting, A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris. She painted more than one version of this work and each one is subtly different. ‘Unremarkable’ responds to this idea of multiple perspectives and multiple versions.
A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris 1907–09, oil on canvas, by Gwen John, image courtesy of Museums Sheffield Collection
Many of my poems explore perception in terms of understanding the self. Having received a diagnosis of dyspraxia in my mid-30s, I have been going through a process of re-evaluating past experiences in light of this new knowledge and the strangeness of ekphrasis seems to match this sense of heightened self-awareness and shifting perception.
‘Hidden Disability’ was initially inspired by my frustrations with the university’s ethical approval process, as I applied for permission to recruit disabled participants to take part in my research. The ethics committee were debating my definition of the term ‘disability’ and querying whether it would be better not to define it at all. At the same time, I was grappling with the knowledge that a neurological difference such as dyspraxia is often perceived as a hidden disability, though many dyspraxic people would not necessarily identify as being ‘disabled’ in the same way as someone who is blind for example. I felt that the most effective (and the most ironic) way to vent all of these frustrations would be through an ekphrastic poem.
AS: The collection is interested not just in neurodiversity itself, but also in the act of ascribing language to it. What part did form play in this? And what does the word ‘dyspraxia’ represent in this collection — it seems like something emboldening but also potentially alienating?
RC: Yes, I interrogate the language of neurodiversity and terms such as dyspraxia in several of my poems. The very fact that Microsoft Word does not recognise the term ‘dyspraxic’ is the subject of one poem. And the more I began to write about dyspraxia and neurodiversity, the more experimental I became in seeking out the most effective form for each poem. Neurodivergence is about diverging from the norm, acting in ways that others perceive as strange or different and some of my poems visualise that divergence on the page.
In ‘Two Seconds of Silence’ I wanted to convey an overwhelming bombardment of sensory overload. The prose poem format, without punctuation seemed the best format, as it provides no space for the reader to pause or reflect. In other poems, such as ‘Self-Portrait as a Neurodivergent Tree’, the poem’s lines lurch across the page to evoke a great unwieldy tree, lumbering through city streets, which is how I often feel as a dyspraxic person living in a neurotypical world.
The alienating aspect that you mention is also true. Terms such as dyspraxia can be helpful. Some of my poems express a sense of relief in being able to give a name to the difference I’ve experienced over a lifetime, but never previously understood. But these terms can also pin people into stereotypes. They may be medical, legal and official, but they were also created by subjective human beings (generally, neurotypical human beings). As such, they are far from perfect. The poem ‘Dys’ is an expression of anger towards the negative connotations of this prefix to the term dyspraxia.