Building for the Butterfly is a collection of spontaneous poetic compositions that explore themes of uncertainty and crisis, the city and nature, with immediacy and degrees of objectivity. The language and diction are bound by determinate and indeterminate symbolism and idioms.
Hughes writes rapidly and fiercely, often compounding layers and countervailing juxtapositions. The collection is a verse journal examining fear, anxiety, and confusion with veracity against a backdrop of sudden change, when the writer’s child was suddenly hospitalised with an undiagnosed sickness.
Inspired by Ted Hughes’s Moortown Diary's search for a sense of place and a fleeting glimpse of a Red Admiral butterfly that flew by during a late summer Oslo rush hour commute, Building for the Butterfly is both a remarkably tender premonition and a raw and protective healing poultice intended to be applied by being read out loud. Enjoy its bold candour and waspish reflections.