The flap of a butterfly's wing in one part of the world can cause devastating storms on the other side, just as the word "lesbian"—a force full of vitality and world-changing creativity—can destroy families and bring down governments. Evoking the ancient worlds of pre-Vedic and Sapphic lovers, medieval jonglaresas, and nuns "fingering petals and hips," as well as the contemporary world of circuses, global politics, friendship, betrayal, and death, the poems in this collection fold in on themselves, exploding into concentric rings of meaning, rich in symbol and metaphor.
It’s an ancient method of
ploughing— more ancient even than
boustrophedon— two cattle retracing
their steps in parallel lines
No, here there’s not a
straight line to be seen anywhere— chaos
in the shape of two vulval wings—
the butterfly effect
Table of Contents
Contents
note to sappho vii
The Butterfly Effect 1
strange tractors 3
hystory 4
Unstopped Mouths 9
unstopped mouths 11
empurpled 19
in the prisons 27
rose garden 37
firenze 43
death 51
gumboots and goblin fruit 55
amphibious lips 63
the land 71
angel tongues 77
tragedia 83
love is an uprising 95
lavender hour 101
carnivale 107
Composition 113
music for lesbian mouths 115
Dialogues with Death 117
almanac of the dead 119
graveside meditation 125
ambition 128
fragments 132
sacrifice 136
the dead 137
Reviews
Judith Rodriguez, author, Nu-Plastik Fanfare Red and Other Poems...
"Hawthorne presents an open world richly peopled from legend, literature, family and travels; but it is the forthright voice and the singular free play of energy and will, memory and perception that hold the reader."
Suzanne Bellamy, lesbian, artist, activist, and essayist...
"You could have knocked me over with a butterfly when I read this book. Here [Hawthorne] has opened up the mosaic form to all levels of lived experience with new confidence and fragility, moving in all ways to the heart of matter, the edge of experience and the breath of tomorrow."
About the Author
Susan Hawthorne is a research associate at Victoria University–Melbourne. She is the coauthor of After Shock: September 11, 2001 and Wild Politics and the author of Bird, The Falling Woman, and The Spinifex Quiz Book.
