About this item
Highlights
- The capricious world of relationships is something everyone has navigated, often wishing for a magic spell to release them from its hold.
- Author(s): Christine Butterworth McDermott
- 128 Pages
- Poetry, American
Description
About the Book
"The Spellbook of Fruit and Flowers is a collection of poems -- told largely through metaphors of plants and flowers -- concerning women's paths through toxic relationships. It meditates on seduction and longing, how they leaves women susceptible, and the sense of despair that follows as the "garden" of life and love is infected or destroyed. One long poem explores Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings and the strength of oppressed women. The book concludes with a set of poems about recovery and new life, a reimagining of the spaces in which to live when things are lost"--Book Synopsis
The capricious world of relationships is something everyone has navigated, often wishing for a magic spell to release them from its hold. In The Spellbook of Fruit and Flowers, Christine Butterworth-McDermott delves into these dark partnerings, using the symbolism of the natural world, particularly plants and their taxonomy, as metaphor. With references to myth and legend, science and history, these poems trace the dangers that arise from seduction, betrayal, and the need to find "pulp over pit." Here, snakes slither, pomegranates are bitten, and forests burn. Yet, there is also a determination to embrace the "resilience of flesh and spirit." Tethered birds are freed, dahlias mean "to survive," and restorative limes are offered. While never shying away from trauma, and its effects, Butterworth-McDermott always encourages the reader to "blink at the new leaf, the green wood /visible beneath the bark of the vine." While the world may be full of poison, the poems here are a salve.