Notes on “Mussel Harvest" by Paula Finn
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By Grace Gaynor
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In “Mussel Harvest,” Paula Finn constructs a poem using the language of film to evoke the sense of actors flashing across a screen, acting out a heartbreaking drama. The speaker’s father is cast as the “lead actor,” a character who is charming in a picturesque scene at one moment, and a terrifying presence at the next. As the narrative spans sites of juxtaposed trauma and joy — a cinematic coastline, a breakfast table, a hospital bed — readers are asked to bear witness to the speaker’s experiences of abuse at the hands of her father, but also her devotion to him as a charismatic, multi-faceted figure. The poem ends with a spine-tingling image of a “daughter, not killed” tending to her father, who is “riddled with cancer,” and readers are left wondering if, in the same position, they would demonstrate such mercy.
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Notes on “Mussel Harvest" by Paula Finn​​
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Paula Finn’s “Mussel Harvest” is a bracing exploration of how memory metabolizes abuse and what it means to narrate a life shaped by the violent charisma of a narcissistic father. Finn captures a peculiar form of poetic agency; a quiet yet urgent choice to turn back and look and not flinch away. What emerges is not nostalgic absolution, but a studied confrontation with the mercurial force of a parent who demanded adoration while engendering fear. The poem unfolds in five sharply cut strophes, each one shifting as unpredictably as the father himself. I was especially struck by “jump cut” — a formal swerve that mimics the terror of sudden change. In just one spare sentence, Finn exposes the poem’s core wound, and in doing so, reveals how abruptly entire childhoods can collapse. Finn's piece resists neat resolution; instead, it stages the disorientation of inherited trauma with cinematic precision. Finn’s voice is measured but devastating, and “Mussel Harvest” leaves us with that rare and necessary ache, the kind that tells us something deeply buried has just resurfaced.
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