Vampire Squid

‘The Vampire Squid, as Arasu writes (not about squid), “has no right / to be beautiful”. Yet in this debut collection, we are shown with wry wonder exactly how beautiful the squid and its compatriots of the Deep Sea can be. Brimming with formal experimentation, it playfully seeks a language for what lurks and lives in the depths of the ocean and within us.’ Caitlin Maling, author of Fish Work and Fish Song

‘The poems in this dazzling new collection plunge the reader downward into the ocean, from the visible waters of sunlight and twilight, past the midnight zone where familiar things lose their shapes, and ultimately into the abyss and the hadal zones, where strange new creatures await scientists and readers. In combining the terms and practices of marine science with the forms and methods of poetry, Arasu challenges the established subjects of verse. These poems take up the language of science, so that the musical syllables of Vampyromorphidia sing alongside echoes of Wordsworth and Shakespeare.

In writing from within a community of scientists, Arasu not only accepts the challenge of responding to the precision of scientific observation, but they also issue a challenge from poetry to science. These are poems of careful observation of the ocean and also of shrewd glances at the human beings who populate ocean science. Poets and readers who love the deep sea and scientists who plumb its mysteries will find much to reward them in these pages.’ Steve Mentz, author of Ocean, An Introduction to the Blue Humanities, and Swim Poems

Prema Arasu is a writer and academic at the Deep-Sea Research Centre at the University of Western Australia. Their research utilises transdisciplinary and creative methods to investigate the aesthetics of the deep sea. In 2023, Prema’s fantasy novel, The Anatomy of Witchcraft, was shortlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award.

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