William Wyld's The Butterfly Bush exposes the mercurial, merciless absurdities of living in a body, of grief, art and hope, the way a garden, up close, reveals an endless orchestra of life: its dirt; its baroque and brutal euphoria.
'This is a crushing debut pamphlet on the surrealism of death and the queerness of loss, in the lineage of Emily Berry and Franz Kafka. "You were so sweet / and kind, Mum, but your corpse is a fucking nightmare," Wyld's speaker sighs, or deadpans, or screams. Just when they appear to be stuck forever in a weird nightmare, they find some comfort, some interest to get them through. The Butterfly Bush is a testament to Wyld's endless curiosity: reader, return that gaze and your attention might just pupate into a butterfly.' Helen Bowell
'Wyld has a unique voice; simultaneously alarming and seductive. You might think you know where a poem is going, only to be met by a sudden switch that is catnip for the synapses. Wyld weaves a sensuous spell rooted in the materiality of life. Their surreal humour creates space for fresh ideas about the interplay of experience and survival, injury and bereavement.' Lisa Kelly
'An expansive, maximalist project with an alluring, permeating strangeness. The turns are constantly surprising, the language delicate and luscious but the images bodily and caustic. The recurring image of dirt across these poems becomes a semantic burial plot, a way through elegy that focuses on the soil beneath our feet.' Susannah Dickey
