‘Lord Of The Butterflies’ by Andrea Gibson

This is a book that surprised me. Being poetry and only 96 pages, I thought this was going to be a fast review, part of a mini reviews post. After reading a couple of poems, I felt something inside of me, something pulled me in, and I had thoughts and feelings, and I realized this collection of poems deserved its own post.

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I got this book from Button Poetry and NetGalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

(Goodreads/Amazon)

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Discovery:

This was my first book by this poet, but when I was checking out poetry collections on NetGalley, this one seemed to stand out, so I choose it (beside a couple of others). It sounded interesting and got very good critics, and the poet is praised at other platforms as well, so I thought I should give it a chance.

Brainstorm:

I thought this was simply gonna be a book of love and suffering, and mostly about being queer, I guess I imagined something average, but god, this was something powerful!

It was both strong and sweet, it touched a lot of important subjects besides the life and situation of LGBTQIA+ people, like gun violence, war, racism, the way America (and the world) is heading, and more, and every word made me feel something. Every word had it’s own purpose, the wording was no more complicated or simpler than it should be. The poetry was music to my ears (yes, inner hearing is a thing), and the meanings were deep and resonated with me, the figures of speech worked well, yet it wasn’t pretentious and didn’t try to seem more than it is. It’s not something anybody could write, yet it’s something universally understandable. This is poetry to my liking!

The sentiments in the poems felt all natural, and even when the author spoke of things I have never experienced, I somehow felt a strong connection and I could strongly relate. Reading their poetry I had the general experience of how universal feelings are, even though we are all different.

Let’s Give It A Grade!

As always with poetry, I go with NetGalley’s rating system, and I give this book

5 stars,

as in I STRONGLY recommend it.

Uniqueness:

The poet themself has a unique voice I think, with this amazing combination of sweetness and power, serious issues and romance, being different yet similar, simple, yet meaningful. They also have a great sense of humor, that’s clear even when talking about serious issues.

Recommend to:

Everyone! Seriously, read it.

Drink tip:

Cognac, or some bitters.

Music room:

‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries

Future:

I want to read every poem written by Andrea Gibson now! I will, one day.

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Have you read any poems by this poet? What do you think?

Have a nice weekend! 😉

Hugs 🙂