This was a lovely and incredibly personal collection of prose that delivers the same kind of impact and influence as Gibson's live performances. Based on what I've seen of Gibson's performances online, while the vocal delivery may be missing to deliver the performative parts of these pieces it does not take away from their gravity.

TW: panic attacks, depression

A great, thought-provoking, sometimes heart-wrenching collection of poems.
Deeply appreciated the topics tackled: sexuality, gender, mental health, self-love, family, love, politics, religion...
As always, though, poetry is incredibly subjective. So I have to say that I truly adored some poems, but some others did not resonate with me.
Nonetheless, I would recommend this.

Simply loved the Andrea's writing, is always intense, dark themes, heart out, the author uses the power of poetry to protest against the American way of life, and the same intensity to open up the heart to someone. Someone who's not loves she's back or even tho knows her.

I can't forget how good she's manages the metaphor in those poems/thoughts/essays using, again, the power of words to benefit her and give strength to the book itself.
Just loved!

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this poetry collection!

Title: Lord of the Butterflies
Author: Andrea Gibson
Rating: 3 stars
Rep: non-binary author

Themes: grief, mental illness, identity, gender and sexuality, moving on and letting go, politics.

I want to start off by saying, that this is definitely a "me not you" situation, I just couldn't connect to the writing style and I was slightly confessed and lost a lot of the time. I really appreciate the subject matters the author tackled. They brought up a lot of important issues and I really respect that. But this book took me months to finish, and I am usually quite a fast reader.

I will admit, the poem dedicated to the Orlando massacre made me cry, it was very powerful.

Overall, I am very glad I had the opportunity to read this one and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to people who like poetry centred around mental illness, LGBTQ+, loss and politics.

“Of the twenty children murdered at Sandy Hook, not one of them needed an ambulance. That’s how dead they were.”

Wow. That's all I'll say. This poetry collection is honest and raw. Andrea Gibson is an amazing poet.

*Thank you to the author and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

5/5. It is hard to find a good collection of poetry that moves you the whole way through and ommitts “fluff” from its content, but this book does it beautifully. The speaker of these poems swells with their hurt and hope as America suffers from falling into its own prejudices, transforming it into a homicidal playground,

“Of the twenty children murdered at
Sandy Hook,
not one of them needed an ambulance.
That’s how dead they were.”

This books strength comes from how modern it is. Content about school shootings, the 2016 election and what it is to be queer is this books subject matter and it’s strengths.

“Your vote for a man who is filling the American Pie with the apples in the throats of girls in the ‘wrong’ restroom.”

And even the moments in which the poet talks about their relationship, we are still subject to talk of current politics; there is almost no escaping the affairs of the world in our own intimate affairs and it’s these little moments that serve to expand the bigger ones and elevate them.

This is some of the most powerful poetry I have ever read and I'll leave it at that because anything else will spoil the experience.

*Book received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!

Andrea Gibson is a gem whose words grip with all the artistry of old-fashioned poetry, all the raw emotion and radical political back-droppings of Instagram poetry, and all the compelling flow of spoken word. (You can tell immediately that Gibson is a master of spoken word.) If you like the elegance of the grandparents of poetry, the Brownings and Tennysons, but wish they were revelant, if you like the freshness of Rupi Kaur but wish she felt more like a poet worth reading and rereading aloud, if you like the gripping experience of spoken word but also want to read that experience on the page, Andrea Gibson is for you. This was my first encounter with Gibson but it will not be my last. Gibson writes of queerness, religion, love, mental illness, physical chronic illness, politics, and more with vivacity, heart, and skill. Very few misses in this powerful collection of hits. Trigger warning for mental illness, self-harm, suicidal ideation, gun violence.

4.5/5 stars.

"You're going to kill your own god
so you can fall in love for the first time."

This is my first read by Andrea Gibson and it didn't disappoint.

This poetry collection is honest, raw, and speaks volume.

My favorites:
Diagnosis. I'm only learning now how to love myself.
Depression. This was written perfectly.
Hurt the fly. Hits home real hard that I need to take a moment before proceeding to read again.

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Another great collection of poetry by Andrea Gibson, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite poets. A few of the poems that stood out to me: a heartbreaking one about Pulse night club and one called Gender in the key of Lyme disease, which had so many truths about chronic illness. Gibson has such a gift and I can't wait to see what they come up with next. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

The topic is important to explore and I enjoy reading poetry but this one was stylistically not my favorite.

*I was honored with a free ebook from Netgelley in exchange of an honest review*

Inspiring, touching, easy to read, hard to forget. I wish everyone in the world would read this so we would learn that all the titles others give us is a gift you can reject if you dont want it! ( THE FIRST 50% WAS A MASTERPIECE. )

This book turned into a thousand butterflies made of words flying all over my soul. As Hemingway said we all are broken thats how the light gets in & I think those butterflies found all those little will o wisps of my broken soul & flied around it whispering to me: if you are alive, raise your hand.

This book is not finished after its finished. All its butterflies will remain in the paper cuts of my soul & one day they will break free flying to other souls to help them out through my words & that day, rising my hand I will answer: here I am. I also am a lord of butterflies

This took me a while to read and I am so glad I finally got to it and finished. I plan on reading more of
Andrea's work in the future.

This is an exceptional collection. It speaks to the American experience; gun violence, mental illness and politics are all discussed in breathtaking verse. I read this in an hour and in that time it took me through every emotion I have. I laughed through 'Boomerang Valentine' and felt my heart sink with 'Depression'.
Poetry written by the same author made me laugh and cry within minutes of each other, earning its place on my favourites shelf. I will be ordering a physical copy of it to share with friends so they can read the work of Andrea Gibson in their best collection yet...

I sneak the steam from the kettle into my pocket
so the next time I'm missing the coast of Maine
I can gift myself the fog

** thanks to Netgalley and Button Poetry for this free ebook copy in exchange for a honest review **

this collection of hard-punch poems is a lot to take in one day but i couldn't stop reading them. my personal favourites are Orlando and Living Proof.
10/10 would be highly recommended indeed!!!

"Lord of the Butterflies" is a necessary body of poetry and one that can easily be added to any collection, especially for young adult readers. I enjoyed Gibson's masterful weaving of issues regarding politics, transgender issues, as well as LGBT themes. While some of the individual works were not particularly my taste, poems such as "Orlando" made me pause for a moment of reflection. I would happily advise anyone seeking poems about lesbians specifically to this work.

Wow, everyone needs to read this?!? I was truly awestruck by how vulnerable yet impactful Gibson strings words to deal with issues like gun violence, homophobia, white supremacy and the will to stay alive. This book will make your heart heavy and want to be hopeful at the same time.

But of course, as a hopeless romantic, the parts that utterly stole my heart were all the poems written in the name of love; queer, queer love.

I really, really enjoyed this. 💓

Please read it.

Andrea Gibson’s Lord of the Butterflies is a remarkable collection of poetry. Gibson continues to address the implications of personal identity on history and social constructs, as they did in their collection, Pansy. I found that this collection felt more personal somehow; there was more at stake. How does one’s personal identity affect their place in history, how does their identity alter history itself?

“Orlando,” a reflection on the shooting at Pulse Nightclub on June 12, 2016, is one of the most moving poems I have read in a long time. Perhaps because of the amount of media coverage of this tragic event, many people, including me, a cisgendered white woman, feel a sort of connection to the victims of this tragedy—It could have been my brother, my sister, my best friend—but few have the ability to articulate what it was like as a person who identifies as queer (Gibson also goes by Andrew sometimes and uses the pronouns they/them) to experience this tragedy personally and communally. Gibson reflects on their life, their first feelings of fear at the thought of being anything other than cisgendered and heterosexual: “…How many years it took me/ to just touch her face,/ how many years of praying/ my heart could play dead/ until the threat was gone…” They remember the night of the shooting, their first performance on stage after, their first love, each memory informing the other.

Not only does Gibson’s identity make “Orlando,” and many of these poems, feel more intimate, it begs the question, how does one’s interpretation of an event change based upon the space they occupy? Gibson’s honesty and emotion in this particular poem, and throughout this collection, gives the reader a sense of occupying a space that may be different from their own. It is not just a glimpse through a window, it is more like sitting at the kitchen table and having a deep conversation over coffee. The reader gets to understand Gibson’s perspective rather than simply viewing it and moving on.

Another touching theme in Lord of the Butterflies is love, but not in a balletic-sweep-of-the-arm kind of way. The love here is common, everyday, and that makes it so much more precious and intimate. Gibson explores love in the plain movements in “Radio.” The moments in this poem are so regular—slicing avocados, driving—that the intimate moments, when they arrive, feel more charged, more erotic, fervent even. This is what makes Gibson relatable as a poet, in the most wonderful way. Paying attention to the mundane details instead of the big moments of a relationship create a more tactile connection to the moment. You can almost smell the sweat on the speakers forehead as they become turned on by their lover, almost want to reach up and wipe your own brow.

Finally, one should know that Gibson’s poems contains many hidden treasures for the reader. Gibson is known to many as a spoken word performer—many of these poems are available on Button Poetry’s YouTube page—so this collection is filled with delectable trips for the tongue. It’s not so much about the rhyme itself, but about the arrangement of the words, the instances of assonance and consonance that allow the reader to feel as if they’re physically moving with the poem, not just reading through it. My one piece of advice would be to read these poems before watching the videos. Gibson has such a gift for the written word, such an ability to create emotion within their reader solely through words on a page, that watching their amazing performances without reading the poems feels like cheating. It is so much cooler to hear a poem in your head and then watch the video to see if it matches up.

Lord of the Butterflies is an incredible collection. It offers the reader the opportunity to have a conversation with the poet, to learn, to ask questions and explore their own ideas about the answers might be. Andrea Gibson’s is a voice that should be listened to and appreciated. It should be read and shared and discussed. Most of all, Gibson’s is a voice that speaks plainly but warmly, like a friend who tells you their entire heart and pulls no punches.

I loved this collection for the raw, honest and powerful poems. There were of course some poems that touched me more than others, some of them were Orlando and Dear Trump Voter.

Uhhhh... wow.

So I can see that this poetry collection is highly rated, and that’s because it’s highly relatable. It’s political, heartbreaking, romantic, and it’s social. Some of the topics touched upon are the Pulse Night Club shooting, Parkland, political upheaval, mental health struggles, family, feminism, and sexuality.

Every poem in this collection is a shakeup. Most require re-reads, or even just line repeated over and over because, breath intake, <i>that was just beautiful</i>. Even the poem-to-poem order is well crafted. Don’t need too much heaviness here or there, so sprinkle in a bit of light-touched romance, or a brief definition. But end on pure love.

<i>so when I can’t catch my breath
I tell myself,</i> You’re fine,

<i>that’s just your heart
giving your sternum a high five
eighty times a second.</i>

Thanks for the shredded heart Andrea.

And thank you NetGalley for the pre-read. This eArch was provided for my honest review.