Brenda Shaughnessy, _The Octopus Museum_

SURPRISINGLY REMINISCENT OF a certain vein of literary fiction imagining apocalyptical upheaval in a contemporary suburban setting--Donald Antrim's Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World and Ben Marcus's The Flame Alphabet came to mind, since Shaughnessy represents things coming apart and the center not holding with a sly satirical humor.

Take, for example, "The Home Team," where a parent is taking comfort in the skill of local girl Jane at "winterball':

Our hearts were in Jane's feet, her hands. All the bills we couldn't pay, the wishing for electricity and lit-up screens of pleasure, the food gone rotten because no one could bring themselves to eat it--Jane gave us so many more chances to do it right this time.

James Wright's "Autumn Begins to Martins Ferry, Ohio" meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but this time it's the mom who is trying hard to keep hold of some notion of who we are and what we care about...even if what we care about may be only the home team's staying above .500.

The book's larger conceit is that human beings have wrought their own extinction, but octopuses (Shaughnessy uses the plural "octopodes," which I like, but is it kosher?) have survived, and have assembled artifacts of the earth's formerly dominant species, of which exhibit the book's poems form a part. Witty, but Shaughnessy being Shaughnessy, she is never simply witty--she's also fiercely angry, subtly knowing, and tender, this last especially towards the end of the book when a few names familiar from earlier volumes start cropping up: Craig and Cal, now joined by Simone.

So...witty, fierce, knowing, tender...have I mentioned the sheer virtuosity? A lot of the book is prose poems, but as usual Shaughnessy handles a variety of forms deftly.

Let's close with this:

My children seem to subsist on music and frosting.
Where there's frosting, there's cake.

Where there's music, someone chose to make a song
over all other things on this earth.