The Hindsight Octopus by Fanny Choi

The Hindsight Octopus

by Fanny Choi

HABITAT: Northern Atlantic Ocean caves and Greyhound luggage compartments; often, several miles from the nearest ATM.

DIET: Omnivorous. Common prey include missed appointments, mistakenly sent text messages, unsuccessful jokes, wrong turns, right turns that look wrong for the first few blocks, and all manners of small errors.

BEHAVIOR: The Hindsight Octopus is most notable for its ability to latch onto mistakes and insecurities with a vice-like grip. A normally shy and elusive creature, the Hindsight Octopus will often surprise its prey by camouflaging itself beneath a bed of justifications for its territorial habits. When hunting, the octopus will seize its prey with its extremely strong tentacles and continue to tighten its grip until it faints from exhaustion, often releasing a storm of ocean currents from special tear ducts in its many eyes. The Hindsight Octopus has often been found stalking the ocean floor alone or retreating to its cave after such instances. It has also been discovered that the octopus’s output of ink increases after these hunts, most notably in an intricate retracing of its steps. It is only after reenacting each moment several times through elaborate displays of ink that the Hindsight Octopus is able to lay the skeleton of its prey to rest in the garden surrounding its cave. Though this animal is widely known for its “performances,” scientists disagree as to whether this behavior is beneficial to the creature, or a debilitating evolutionary fluke.

DID YOU KNOW?: The only way to kill a Hindsight Octopus is to release it into the wild.

This poem was published in CAP Magazine, 2014. You can read it here, where it was published with some beautiful artwork. The whole issue is dedicated to animals.

I admit it--my very first response to this poem was, "How did Fanny Choi know in 2014 what my past two weeks would be like and that I would need this poem?" Yes, I have been saying things badly, writing responses that did not include all the information I was thinking, and just generally doing things that, with hindsight, I should have done better or not done at all. Future periods like this--I know they are to come--will have me returning to this poem for a smile and the reminder that I am not alone.

I love poems that use forms from very non-poetry sources (I have written a number of them myself). They add a sense of playfulness, bolstering a fun poem and adding a surprise to poems with serious themes. Either way, done well, they work.

In this poem, Choi mixes a form you might see on a flash card or a "Fun Animal Facts" website with an imaginary animal. Why did she choose an octopus? I have no idea, other than, why not? They are intelligent, graceful, beautiful creatures, so perhaps when an octopus makes a faux pas, it is especially embarrassing.

I like how she starts with--if you are not paying much attention--an environment in which a certain octopus might live (North Atlantic caves) and immediately includes an environment no animal, much less an octopus, could live.

The diet of this creature is where I, and I have to assume most of us, relate. Choi lists the specific foodstuffs this animal eats, "all manners of small errors." The unsuccessful jokes struck a nerve. "Mistakenly sent text messages" reminded me of a mistakenly sent email I sent about 20 years ago that still makes me cringe.

The behavior section here is brilliant. Worded like an entry about an actual animal, it cleverly describes the moments of and after a small error is made. The obsessing about the mistake afterwards is focused on here, including hiding, crying, fainting, and reenacting the moment the mistake was made.

The ending here offers some hope to those of us who sometimes put our feet in our mouths and then dwell on the incident for a long while: "release it into the wild." In other words, let it go (thank you, Frozen) or shake it off (thank you, Taylor Swift). When I read poem this the first time, I wondered how she was going to end the poem, and I was very pleased that Choi went with a practical solution that also fit with the form. It is still keeping with the light tone, but has a smidge of seriousness/life advice that gives the poem a fitting conclusion.

Hard to believe but the next time I post a poem, it will be September. Pumpkin spice poetry, anyone?