The Chalk Butterfly

Author: Monson, Jane

Literature & literary studies

Published on 3 May 2022 by Cinnamon Press in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 74 pages
176 x 519 x 8 | 114g

Responding to the fragile borders between climate change and mental health to evolve into conversations around trauma, change, care and the natural world, The Chalk Butterfly explores images of home and the paradoxes around our simultaneous care and un-care for nature and language. Working backwards through the butterfly's life cycle, each phase examines the tipping points, vanishing or fractured boundaries between our environments (internal and external), reflecting on the damaging ways we step on both the earth and humanity. Yet in these precise, exquisitely realised prose poems there is also celebration of the overwhelming urge to adapt and help life thrive, a turning away from the despair that would accept we might 'just about manage' or even fail in favour of moments of transformation.