At the Lepidopterist’s House

by Chelsea Woodard

Winner of the 2022 Michael Waters Poetry Prize. AT THE LEPIDOPTERIST'S HOUSE invites the reader to explore natural and mythic landscapes, examine the interiors of marriage and the domestic, and consider the bodies of animals as vessels of memory and imagination. At times through the lens of scientific observation or artistic rendering, at others through lived experience, the speakers of these poems face separation from places and people, gathering real and remembered artifacts as a means of better understanding our tumultuous world. This collection is a meditation on the ways one can lose and reimagine home, on what it means to love and to grieve, to find freedom and lightness among the weight of the material and the human. "In her third collection of poetry, Chelsea Woodard's gifts are in full bloom. Her dexterity with rhyme, rhythm, and tactile animal and mineral imagery recalls Sylvia Plath's most formidable and monumental poems of memorial. Woodard's craft is, in fact, so polished here as to be almost transparent, showcasing a richness of heartfelt tender emotion, a quietly melancholy awareness of the bodily frailty and transience that defines our shared humanity. Her blend of sophisticated technique and deeply affecting poignancy proves that, like the goddess Eris's apples, verse can be outwardly 'golden and sweet' and yet remain challengingly complex and multidimensional; the poems in this book are at once artfully formed and appealingly free from 'the gnarled grip // of manners.'"--Jenna Le Poetry. Family & Relationships.

88 pages, Paperback

Published October 27, 2023

Reviews

[Jenna]

If you don't know this poet, you should. This is the blurb I wrote for this lovely book:

In her third collection of poetry, Chelsea Woodard's gifts are in full bloom. Her dexterity with rhyme, rhythm, and tactile animal and mineral imagery recalls Sylvia Plath's most formidable and monumental poems of memorial. Woodard's craft is, in fact, so polished here as to be almost transparent, showcasing a richness of heartfelt tender emotion, a quietly melancholy awareness of the bodily frailty and transience that defines our shared humanity. Her blend of sophisticated technique and deeply affecting poignancy proves that, like the goddess Eris's apples, verse can be outwardly "golden and sweet" and yet remain challengingly complex and multidimensional; the poems in this book are at once artfully formed and appealingly free from "the gnarled grip // of manners."

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fact that this rhymes so much and I still liked it says a lot tbh. Myth + science + womanhood + sound work!!!! + images 🫶🏼