Sky Tongued Back with Light

Snared between dream-like myth and harsh recollections of growing up, Sky Tongued Back with Light probes the sites of violence, 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, Sébastien Luc Butler’s poems navigate landscapes both physical and spiritual. 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.

Sé bastien Luc Butler was born and raised in Michigan. He holds an MFA from the University of Virginia, where he was a Poe/Faulkner Fellow in poetry, and served as poetry editor for Meridian. The recipient of the Patricia Cleary Award for Poetry and the Hopwood Award for Poetry, Sé bastien has been a finalist for the National Poetry Series, the Levis Book Prize, and the Black Warrior Review Contest. He currently serves as an assistant editor at West Trade Review, and lives in New York City.