- Olivia Brooks
- Dec 3
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 5
About the Work: Benjamin Grossberg
In our “About the Work” series, Olga Mexina asks recent contributors for insight into their writing or for current sources of inspiration. Read Benjamin Grossberg's work in SER Vol. 43.1.
“My Octopus Lover Makes No Bones”
My initial inspiration for this series was the 2020 documentary, My Octopus Teacher: its vivid, saturated glimpses. But when I started writing a year or so after watching it, the real quickly got left behind. My octopus has more in common with cartoon animation and the world of gay romance than anything from that film. The poems follow a middle-age speaker ruminating on his past failures to find (or keep) love, while his current boyfriend, the octopus—an impish fellow, half mute wisdom figure, half ingénue—offers implicit commentary.
But “Makes No Bones,” which began with the pun of its title, takes a different tac. Here the failures aren’t just the speaker’s own. They’re species-wide, something about humans that it might well take a non-human perspective to notice. We have these strange hardnesses inside us: bones, yes, but also psychological insensitivities that let us pollute this planet to the detriment of ourselves and every other creature on it. These hardnesses, physical and psychological, outlast us: in this poem, our bones settle to the ocean floor along with old coke cans, computer parts, various kinds of garbage. Usually the octopus lover is playful and forgiving (and, in my mind, adorable), but this poem ends on an angrier note. Still, the octopus never actually talks, so perhaps his accusations are simply projections by the speaker: that is, perhaps they are self-accusations at heart.
BENJAMIN S. GROSSBERG's books of poetry include My Husband Would (University of Tampa, 2020), winner of the 2021 Connecticut Book Award, and Sweet Core Orchard (University of Tampa, 2009), winner of a Lambda Literary Award. He also wrote the novel, The Spring before Obergefell (University of Nebraska Press, 2024), which was selected by Percival Everett for the 2023 AWP Award Series James Alan McPherson Prize. Ben is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Hartford.