Publisher's Synopsis
Sé bastien Luc Butler' s debut chapbook Sky Tongued Back with Light explores the sites of pain, beauty, and transformation that punctuate a boy' s childhood and adolescence in the rural, northern Midwest. Sifting memory' s scattered fragments to interrogate grief, gender, and the fragility of family, Butler probes landscape, as well as spiritual terrain. Steeped in the voice of myth and images of the otherworldly, these poems move through personal and collective silences, towards self-actualization and love. Examining a culture that teaches violence to the self as the basis for violence against others, this collection holds still those moments where the corporal and incorporeal converge with lasting impact.
