"DEPRESSION [VERB]
to put on
your best outfit
and feel
like you're dressing
a wound"

While it is the first book of Andrea that I'm reading, after all the poems hitting a place on my mind and heart in it's own way, I'm sure I'll need to look for her other books to keep feeling like this.

With poems varying from politics, to homophobia and from health. It was lot's of emotions coming to hit me where it should, keep me thinking, keep me feeling.

"DIAGNOSIS
I suffer
from unrequited love,
I love myself, but I don't
love myself
back"

Very skillfully written poetry that I generally quite enjoyed. I had a harder time connecting with a lot of the LGBT+-focused poems (since I'm a straight male with relatively little experience with those issues), but I really appreciated a lot of the politically charged poems and the ones dealing with mental illness. My personal favorite in the collection was "Depression [Verb]."

Wonderful, eloquent poetry book!! As I was reading it, I was thinking through my contact list of everyone I wanted to tell about this book. It makes you feel like the author completely opened up and let the reader in. I want to read more from this author. Beautiful work!

Consuming poetry has become a chore as of late. As a poet and organiser of a spoken word event, I cut my teeth on Button Poetry – Neil Hilborn’s OCD, to be exact. My entire spoken word community (Wordsmiths of Kuching) has him to thank for even existing.

While much of our own spoken word is inspired by the likes of Button Poetry and poets such as Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye, I was also wary about letting too much Americanism hijack the kind of voices you might find in Sarawak, Borneo.

…that’s not entirely true. I couldn’t care less where my fellow local poets find their voice as long as they use it to speak their truth. I was the one struggling about my own voice and identity.

Andrea Gibson writes a lot about identity, identifying as queer and genderqueer, something that is hard for to comprehend if you’re not in the same position. ‘Lord of the Butterflies’ sheds some of light into Gibson’s life. I read from another article that writing poetry helps them learn about their gender identity, and it’s helped me to understand it a little bit more through their eyes.

"With my gender it was never that I came to the page knowing who I was and wrote it down, but I would write to unpack my gender and learn my gender." - Poet Andrea Gibson Shares How They Learned About Their Gender Identity Through Writing – Seventeen, May 2, 2018

As poets, we do this more often than not – unpack the big issues and the little details in our work. A lot of single-poet collections are a window into their lives at the time of writing, something that must be both difficult and cathartic.

I can relate. Not to their experience as a person, but to the inevitability of deep self-examination and revelations that may be impossible to bring up in casual conversation. Some of these revelations are relatable to everyone. This for example:

Of all the violence I have known in my life
I have never known violence

like the violence I have spoken to myself,
and I have seen almost everyone round me

hold the same belt to their own back,
an ambush of every way we’ve decided we’re not enough,

then looking for someone outside of ourselves
to clean that treason up.

Boomerang Valentine – Andrea Gibson

And this delightful moment of cheese meets wit meets me cry-laughing:

When she’s down I want to give her my best
pick-up lines. What’s your sign?

My sign has historically been STOP
but since meeting you I’ve changed it

to MERGE.

Give Her – Andrea Gibson

This is the kind of word-fu I stayed around for when I found spoken word. I am constantly moved by those who can take their journey and turn it into an art form that tells the rest of us we are not alone. Yes, our pain comes in different shapes but the power of voice brings us together.

Most of the pieces in ‘Lord of the Butterflies’ are also on Gibson’s album ‘Hey Galaxy’, which can be found on Spotify.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

Unique writing and story that kept me interested. A story that had me wanting to read more. Relatable characters and a good flow. Would recommend!

Gibson's poems hit you right in the heart. They're raw, blunt, unyielding in their insight of violence, love, loss, gender, sexuality, and so much more. Some of my favorites include: Ode to the Panic Attack and America Wakes Me In the Middle of the Night. Both spoke to my own anxieties and I felt those two pieces of poetry really spoke to everyone at some point in their lives.

I have loved Andrea Gibson's work for some time now. Their words are cutting and pointed and vulnerable and I've loved everything this poet has put to page. The deeply personal struggles of a young person not quite fitting in with world around them, the idea of building a family for yourself because your own is a mess, all of it just resonates with me so deeply. I love this book and can't wait to buy hard copy of it as soon as I can. Thank you, for sharing your voice, Gibby. I appreciate it more than you'll ever know.

With poems giving insight into complex issues such as gender, romance, loss, gun violence and even politics, Andrea Gibson presents her poetry in a thoughtful, if dramatic manner. For me, I struggled to connect. I feel so far removed from these experiences and I think that made it difficult for them to make an impact on me. As poetry is so personal however, I do think that there will be readers who relate and find comfort in this collection, but it sadly wasn't for me.

Andrea Gibson has done it again. This is such an incredibly raw and powerful collection of poems. Gibson has a way with words and I want to read every poem they have ever and will ever write. I don't read much poetry, mostly because I worry that I won't understand or connect with it, but I don't have that problem with Gibson's poems. I just wish there were other poets I felt a connection with in this way. Some of these poems brought me close to tears and really made me feel things, they're extremely relevant and thought-provoking. The only other book I've read by Gibson is 'Pansy', but after reading 'Lord of the Butterflies' I want their entire collection. Absolutely outstanding.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an earc copy of this book.

I enjoyed this collection of poetry. I connected to some of it and they made me feel things but even some I didn’t connect with made me feel things too. If you enjoy poetry I would recommend you to pick this up. I gave this a 3.75 out of 5 stars.

"what i want most is to live the rest of my life desperately wanting to live it."

tw mentions of shootings and homophobia

Andrea Gibson writes achingly beautiful poetry. When I say aching I mean I genuinely felt something, solid and real, in my chest as I read through their collection of poems.

To be fair, Andrea Gibson can do very little wrong in my eyes. I've been watching their poems on Youtube for years, all the way back to my messy college days, and I absolutely credit them for helping me come out. Once I saw them live in San Francisco, after driving four hours to be there, and afterwards they gave me a hug. I'm sure I was sweaty and weird about it. I went into this book fully expecting to adore it, and to no one's surprise, I did.

I read their love poems out loud to my girlfriend. I teared up as I read their account on Orlando, and remembered the way I choked on my own guilt and sorrow on June 12th, 2016. I thought about the drills I run with my own students, only kindergarteners, and felt a deep kinship as they mentioned their friend hiding 7 year olds away in case of a shooting.

This collection has so much to offer, but it's not something to read lightly. The topics Andrea discusses are real, and they are incredibly heavy, but please, if you can: read these poems.

I loved this book. Andrea Gibson is a very talented poet and even though many of our life experiences are very different so I didn't "relate to" as many of their poems as I do with other writers, I loved reading them. A few of my favorite poems from this collection included "Ode to the Panic Attack" and "The Day you Died Because You Wanted To". Battling subjects from self worth in "All the Good in You" (which honestly everyone should post on their bathroom mirror), to political climate in "Thankstaking" and "America Wakes Me in the Middle of the Night" to mental health in the previously mentioned "Ode to the Panic Attack" to gender/sexuality related poems such as "Bad at Love" and "Gender in the Key of Lyme Disease" there is something here for everyone. Thanks for another great collection of poetry!

4 🌟

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


I first got interested in this book because of poetry from queer perspective but Gibson touches upon many other subjects, mainly -- politics, trump administration (they didn't capitalise his name so I won't do that as well), faith, family, disability, mental health, and suicide.

With so many subjects I would expect this not even 100 pages long work to be all over the place but it never felt like Gibson was jumping from one subject to another and the transition was so smooth I only now realised how many things they managed to include here.

I'm having trouble choosing quotes to put here - I highlighted so many. Many of those poems, or even verses, made me cry, made me rage, made me smile. But between them, there were a few that felt like they described emotions more than evoke them -- and since I read poetry to feel things -- this is the reason I'm not 5-staring this work.

"It's true
what they say about the gays
being so fashionable—
our ghosts never go
out of style"

"I'm fascinated with this idea
of getting high on life. I imagine people
on their backs in lilac fields snorting the lines
the planes leave in the sky, walking
with honeymoons in their bloodstreams."

"When she's down I want to give her my best
pick-up lines. What's your sign?
My sign has historically been STOP
but since meeting you I've changed it

to MERGE."

“You are the brst thing that has ever happened to you.”

Poetry Collections are usually a hit or miss from me. I’m always scared when I pick up a collection that I’ve been dying to read and I’ll end up disliking it.

That is not what happened with this collection. From start to finish I was laughing, crying and feeling everything Andrea wanted me to feel. As a member of the Queer community many of her poems about identity and sexuality spoke to me, and there’s no feeling like finally beng recognized and having someone else understand the thing that makes you different.

The poems were raw and unaplogetic and so full of emotion. This is what I love about modern peotry. The honesty of it all nomatter how much it hurts to write down or to re-live.

I would reccomend this to anyone who is a fan of raw modern poetry, and in the mood for a gut wrenching cry.

Poetry is perhaps one of the most significant forms of writing that I read.  Stories, for me, usually take time to develop and by the end, I usually have gotten the main point.  Why I love reading poetry collections is similar but more concise; poetry delivers a direct idea and then leaves me thinking about it more after I'm finished.  While stories are nice to read and a break from reality, poetry allows me to connect with something more directly.  For me, I know its good poetry when I read it and it makes something in me click and I can't stop thinking about it.

I had never heard of Andrea Gibson before I found this title on NetGalley.  It is due to be released November 27, 2018, and I cannot wait!  I will most definitely buy a physical copy of this and start recommending it to everyone I know.

Andrea Gibson's words were so true and raw and packed with emotion for me.  It's amazing to connect with a collection of poetry so much.  While reading it, I was so taken with them and the stories they crafts through their poetry that I immediately found them and Instagram and started following.  At times, some of the poems just create such a surge of emotion and pure feelings that I had to re-read them to make sure I didn't miss anything.  And sometimes, a poem just left me reeling at how close to home it seems and how affected by a written word that I could be.  Their work is so beautiful.

This collection of poetry delves artfully into relevant topics such as gender, identity, loss, and family issues.  Each poem is beautifully written and draws attention to these topics in ways that are so touching and personal.  I honestly cannot say enough about how perfect this collection is.  It's a five-star book, hands down.

I am not a prolific poetry reader. It is a genre I enjoy but one I don’t often touch. There was a month, a couple of years ago, where I spent the majority of my free time listening to spoken word poetry on YouTube, but that pastime fizzled out. However, despite being otherwise unfamiliar with Andrea Gibson beforehand, when I saw Lord of the Butterflies and its subject matter I simply knew I had to read it.

And what a beautiful, poignant book it is. I consumed the words of Gibson, fervent in my reading.

To put it simply: never before has a collection of poems resonated with me, broken my heart, reduced me to tears and left me with a sense of hope at different points in the reading. Lord of the Butterflies pins its focus upon the struggles of the lgbtqa+ community, mental health and family. It is prosaic poetry, and has such a strong presence as to feel like a physical manifestation, which is to say that it has the ability to crawl beneath your skin and into the walls of your heart.

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.

What.A.Stunning.Book. I got the Lord of the Butterflies from Netgallery because I'd seen it all over the Button poetry page and my goodness what a book! I loved each and every piece in it! This collection of poems is not for people who like direct work, it is for those who enjoy thinking and feeling and being uncomfortable and a bit unsure and yet are thoroughly prepared to be surprised. I loved how every line was used to deliver an impact, how every poem packed a punch.
I will revisit this book multiple times and go ahead and buy a copy too. It's amazing! READ IT!

I teach middle school so some of the poems in this collection might be a little too much for some of my students, but I do plan on using a few of these in my lessons when we get to spoken word. These poems were fantastic and they sounded even better when said aloud. This was the first poem collection I've read from Andrea and they are just fantastic at what they do. I initially wanted to read this because the cover is very striking, and Lord of the Flies is one of my favorites to teach, but when I read the synopsis I knew this was something I needed to read anyway.

Now, I'm definitely not one who loves poetry (I know, weird for a Language Arts teacher) because I do find it difficult sometimes to comprehend what I'm reading and it can get very frustrating. This collection, however, is all spoken word so I powered through this pretty easily. The subject matter is one that is important to me and all the poems fit flawlessly within the LGBTQ+ and gender topics. I wish there wasn't politics involved in some of the poems because I generally try to stay away from that in my reading, but the poems on those topics were tasteful and well-done.

This was my first introduction to Andrea's work, and definitely won't be my last. Their powerful and haunting poems will stay with me for a long, long time and I can't wait to see what else they come out with. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to review this!

I love discovering new poets and I was so excited to read Lord of the Butterflies, but when I started reading this book, it didn’t grab my attention at all. I couldn’t connect to the first few poems and that’s why I decided not to continue reading this book. I have a big TBR and life is too short to waste on books that don’t grab my attention.