The imaginative wit of the chapbook\u2019s second poem, \u201cGetting Doored at 73,\u201d is local and lexically precise. In the aftermath of a minor crash, Chapman reflects on the memory of how a \u201creal car\u201d used to sound, contrasted with the \u201cthin sound\u201d of present-day technology: \u201cStop-motion, expletive mine\u201d (2). This observation inspires him to personify the \u201cpoor\u201d automobile: \u201cInjury is hard to assess when both cars are hurt\u201d (2). Ultimately, the poet\u2019s wordplay with \u201cSemantics\u201d redeems a forfeited day of \u201chappiness lost.\u201d Next, and the shortest poem of the collection, is \u201cThe Last House,\u201d a linguistic improvisation around French, English, and \u201cthe English of numerous Irish writers. \/ An teach deireanach<\/em> means the final house\u201d (3), which conveys that, even as a Shakespearean \u201ctongue\u201d morphs and changes over time, houses and their gardens do as well. Mindful that \u201cA house deserves a name when it becomes \/ the last house you expect to own or occupy,\u201d the poet varies the strong iambic pentameter of this poem\u2019s opening line into vers libre, ending with a question in the cadence of speech: \u201cBut how to avoid discord in mitigating fault, \/ a slur to the merit of an old mother tongue?\u201d (3).<\/p>\n Situating his poems into a cycle of seasons over a calendar year provides Chapman with a flexible scaffolding to support thematic development, and the poems engage intertextually with literary predecessors in complex, resonant ways. For example, \u201cSilence and Wonder\u201d and \u201cThe Triumph of Love\u201d both invoke William Faulkner, using an eight-line stanza structure in free verse with some subtle iambic patterning. \u201cSilence and Wonder,\u201d an allegorical la dolce vita<\/em> poem that focuses on the poet\u2019s early travels with his wife, gorgeously represents geographical settings in past, present and memory. This poem\u2019s intertextual allusions to the historical and literary past are interwoven with vividly imagistic, and at times almost surrealistic, sensory detail — for instance, the \u201cfairy patterings\u201d (22) of Faulkner’s \u201cCarcassonne,\u201d from the poem\u2019s epigraph, connect with \u201cpattering silence\u201d (22) and “a patter of Rinc\u00f3n attic rats\u201d (23). Similarly, \u201cThe Woolfs on the Notion of Zot\u201d and \u201cThe Woolfs on Tides\u201d feature stylistically and substantively intricate interconnections, inspired by figures of literary modernism. \u201cZot,\u201d in the poet\u2019s coinage, is \u201cthe last increment \/ before zero in the countdown from night\u201d (6) — a mathematically precise instant before dawn that inspires his philosophical reflection, as a Woolf scholar, on Leonard and Virginia Woolf\u2019s analogous perceptions. Complicating mathematical precision, \u201cThe Woolfs on the Notion of Zot\u201d would map to June on the cycle of the year, if this garden of poems were symmetrically arranged; instead, calling to mind Virginia Woolf\u2019s famous observations in \u201cModern Fiction,\u201d Chapman arranges the sequence of his poetic calendar in the form of Woolf\u2019s \u201cluminous halo.\u201d<\/p>\n In \u201cThe Marabar Caves and Such Fantasies\u201d Chapman explores Forster\u2019s linguistic indeterminacy with the \u201cmuddle\u201d of the Marabar (Barabar) caves, as he acknowledges \u201cshunning\u201d (11) the marble caves of the Siskiyou Mountains: \u201cthough I entered those cold passages once<\/em>, \/ in 1957, I could not bring myself to do it again\u201d (11). Weighing the risks that might accompany meddling with geographical and metaphorical caves, he confirms the wise determination: \u201cleave them alone\u201d (while including them in poetry and novels).\u00a0In the following poem, \u201cOn Reading Joyce — Then and Again,\u201d Chapman develops a bravura poetic imitation of Joycean prose experimentation in Ulysses<\/em>, simultaneously interrogating Joycean pilgrimages in literary, historical and biographical registers. Concluding his sequence of poetic engagement with modernist experimentation in prose, in \u201cWhat Price Paradise\u201d Chapman contemplates Malcolm Lowry\u2019s Under the Volcano<\/em>, in a poem that features lush description with some chilling lines about writerly paths to be avoided: \u201cmistaking immolation for abnegation\u201d\u00a0(27).<\/p>\n Oregon has been home to Chapmans for four generations, and the poet now lives with his family in Portland. In \u201cOn Turning 74,\u201d he emphasizes what matters most: \u201cOn losing parents, one keeps on being \/ that son\u201d; his children\u2019s luck \u201cbecause I remember the child I \/ was and still am because of them\u201d; a closing stanza with a moving tribute to his wife (5) — observations that connect with \u201cThe Butterfly Garden\u201d in mid-February as a wise reflection on the \u201cgood life,\u201d encompassing love and work. In \u201cApplesauce, or the Origin of Irony,\u201d Chapman recounts with precise and scintillating detail formative early experiences with his extended family, including his grandmother Mary Chapman, over the course of a \u201cgood summer,\u201d one that is followed by devastating family losses. Guided by Mary, at the age of \u201c7 or 8\u201d he learns to value the art of her manual farm labor, as well as its metaphorical resonances: \u201cChapmans do not use insecticide, so the apples \/ have worms. Thence most peeling and coring \/ leads to applesauce, requiring strong wrists and \/ dexterity to separate the good from the bad\u201d (32). His grandmother\u2019s mentorship \u201cin a way she \/ probably never imagined\u201d (33) proves formative for the future poet.<\/p>\n In the closing, thirteenth poem, \u201cSeeds for Spring,\u201d Chapman\u2019s cyclical structure opens from a circle to a spiral, with the poet\u2019s intention to cultivate \u201canother garden book…the work of saving seeds for spring.\u201d Alluding to Heaney, Snyder, and Yeats, the poet recognizes that his garden has come full circle after being rekindled in the opening\u00a0poem, and the past year\u2019s seeds are ready to generate something new. Politics is mentioned briefly, too, with an agentic response: \u201cI\u2019m with Voltaire and the \/ poets and choose to act by \/ plotting out another work\u201d (36). In this Pacific Northwest garden, the bird of poetry sings splendidly, not out of nature but flying by its nets. The Butterfly Garden<\/em> exemplifies a moving, triumphal quest to make meaning that endures.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN: AND 12 OTHER POEMS OF THE YEAR. by Wayne K. Chapman. Clemson University Press, January 2026. 46…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5828"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5832,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions\/5832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/libraries.clemson.edu\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/butterfly-illustrated-wings-300x222.png\")
The opening poem, \u201cThe Butterfly Garden,\u201d presents a challenge to \u201crekindle\u201d the poet\u2019s eponymous West Coast garden as both a physical place and a metaphorical setting for creative work. Chapman\u2019s collection of \u201ca year\u201d begins on Valentine\u2019s Day, evoking the importance of both art and love. A hummingbird hovers and \u201ctries its courage\u201d over a clump of heather that thrives in \u201ccold mud in the rain,\u201d stalked by a craving cat who \u201ccannot know \/ the breeding imperatives \/ of a hummingbird in winter\u201d (1). The cat leaps, but the hummingbird escapes, representing the beginning of a flight that will conflate this actual and metaphorical bird, in the chapbook\u2019s closing poem, \u201cSeeds for Spring,\u201d with a poetic world that encompasses Yeats\u2019s golden bird: \u201cthe work-lust<\/em> of Heaney \/ and Gary Snyder\u2019s \u2018Hay \/ for Horses,\u2019 even Yeats\u2019s \/ \u2018Sailing to Byzantium\u2019\u201d (35).<\/p>\n