Poetry review- THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE: Merryn Williams admires the originality of thought and expression in this collection by the late Kathryn Bevis
The Butterfly House
Kathryn Bevis
Seren
ISBN 9781781727553
£10.99
Kathryn Bevis, who died on 14th May 2024, described herself as ‘a neurodivergent poet’ and said ‘Because I’m autistic, I have an unusual way of looking at events and experiences’. Not very long ago she was in her forties, happily married, still to publish a first collection but already writing many prizewinning poems and lecturing on ‘survival, nature and wellbeing’. Then in early 2022 she was diagnosed with terminal cancer; nothing could be done for her. There were just two years left in which to write her best poetry.
The amazingly titled poem “My body tells me that she’s filing for divorce” had an extraordinary effect on its first readers:
She’s taken a good, hard look at the state
of our relationship. She knows it’s not
for her.
This is language we have all heard before but it’s not about divorce, it’s about cancer, ‘this bitter pill whose name I can’t pronounce’. You can easily find the poem online and I guarantee you won’t forget it. She compared this ‘marriage’ to milk on the turn, a bad egg, a tree ‘whose one, rotten root/is poisoning the leaves’.
In time, denial and anger gave way to a determination to make the best use of the time that remained. “Everyone will be there” (also to be found online) insists that there will be a huge party at her funeral. There will be cake, ‘more cake/ than you’ve ever seen’, there will be flowers, there will be balloons and games:
I will blaze with love’s colours
on this, my parting party from this world.
I want it to brim with rapture
for everything my tongue will not,
by then, be able to christen
The book is divided into two sections, After and Before (the diagnosis). Outstanding among After poems are “My Cancer as a Ring-Tailed Lemur”, in which she looks at ultrasound and mammogram images of the hated thing, ‘stripes of black and white’, inside ‘my body’s forest’, and “How Animals Grieve” (we can watch them on You Tube mourning for their young). Animals swarm everywhere in this poet’s universe. “Butterflies” celebrate the life of a dying friend, ‘the only death I’ve ever known’, so far. In “Night-Time at the Aquarium” Bevis goes to sleep on a glass bridge while sharks cruise underneath. In “Translations of Grief” she compares herself to a nursery of sardines about to be swallowed by dolphins, then is trapped inside a blue whale and later becomes a light-bearing jellyfish. Most affecting of these poems is “Egg”, in which the emperor penguins’ life cycle is a metaphor for her marriage. Outdoors in winter, the couple pass their precious egg with infinite care ‘from her to him’:
They’ll have one chance: a single frozen
moment. Finally, they risk it all.
The egg must not touch the ice or be lost
to cold, absorbed by boundless white.
Like them, we took our time learning
how to love. Now, as we stand with our backs
to the storm, waiting for the light to fade,
we must keep to the faith in what we’ve made:
a frail cradle, this miracle
of our life together. Soon, I must walk
on my own in the dark.
Not surprisingly, the poems in the Before section are less striking than those written in anticipation of death. But some of them are very good; ironically, one is called “You will survive” and is about her mother, who, it seems, was also suffering from cancer. She writes about grandparents, delinquent children and exploited women; “Teddy” is a splendid and amusing piece about coercive control.
I am reminded of another widely appreciated twenty-first century poem by Vernon Scannell called “Missing Things”. It is a calm, classic meditation in which an old man looks back on his life and imagines his books and house going on without him. Here, in The Butterfly House a young woman writes about the same subject in ways which couldn’t be more different. A neurodivergent mind can indeed throw up some astonishing images.
Sep 18 2024
London Grip Poetry Review – Kathryn Bevis
Poetry review- THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE: Merryn Williams admires the originality of thought and expression in this collection by the late Kathryn Bevis
Kathryn Bevis, who died on 14th May 2024, described herself as ‘a neurodivergent poet’ and said ‘Because I’m autistic, I have an unusual way of looking at events and experiences’. Not very long ago she was in her forties, happily married, still to publish a first collection but already writing many prizewinning poems and lecturing on ‘survival, nature and wellbeing’. Then in early 2022 she was diagnosed with terminal cancer; nothing could be done for her. There were just two years left in which to write her best poetry.
The amazingly titled poem “My body tells me that she’s filing for divorce” had an extraordinary effect on its first readers:
She’s taken a good, hard look at the state of our relationship. She knows it’s not for her.This is language we have all heard before but it’s not about divorce, it’s about cancer, ‘this bitter pill whose name I can’t pronounce’. You can easily find the poem online and I guarantee you won’t forget it. She compared this ‘marriage’ to milk on the turn, a bad egg, a tree ‘whose one, rotten root/is poisoning the leaves’.
In time, denial and anger gave way to a determination to make the best use of the time that remained. “Everyone will be there” (also to be found online) insists that there will be a huge party at her funeral. There will be cake, ‘more cake/ than you’ve ever seen’, there will be flowers, there will be balloons and games:
I will blaze with love’s colours on this, my parting party from this world. I want it to brim with rapture for everything my tongue will not, by then, be able to christenThe book is divided into two sections, After and Before (the diagnosis). Outstanding among After poems are “My Cancer as a Ring-Tailed Lemur”, in which she looks at ultrasound and mammogram images of the hated thing, ‘stripes of black and white’, inside ‘my body’s forest’, and “How Animals Grieve” (we can watch them on You Tube mourning for their young). Animals swarm everywhere in this poet’s universe. “Butterflies” celebrate the life of a dying friend, ‘the only death I’ve ever known’, so far. In “Night-Time at the Aquarium” Bevis goes to sleep on a glass bridge while sharks cruise underneath. In “Translations of Grief” she compares herself to a nursery of sardines about to be swallowed by dolphins, then is trapped inside a blue whale and later becomes a light-bearing jellyfish. Most affecting of these poems is “Egg”, in which the emperor penguins’ life cycle is a metaphor for her marriage. Outdoors in winter, the couple pass their precious egg with infinite care ‘from her to him’:
They’ll have one chance: a single frozen moment. Finally, they risk it all. The egg must not touch the ice or be lost to cold, absorbed by boundless white. Like them, we took our time learning how to love. Now, as we stand with our backs to the storm, waiting for the light to fade, we must keep to the faith in what we’ve made: a frail cradle, this miracle of our life together. Soon, I must walk on my own in the dark.Not surprisingly, the poems in the Before section are less striking than those written in anticipation of death. But some of them are very good; ironically, one is called “You will survive” and is about her mother, who, it seems, was also suffering from cancer. She writes about grandparents, delinquent children and exploited women; “Teddy” is a splendid and amusing piece about coercive control.
I am reminded of another widely appreciated twenty-first century poem by Vernon Scannell called “Missing Things”. It is a calm, classic meditation in which an old man looks back on his life and imagines his books and house going on without him. Here, in The Butterfly House a young woman writes about the same subject in ways which couldn’t be more different. A neurodivergent mind can indeed throw up some astonishing images.