A Short History of the Island of Butterflies

by Nicholas Christopher

Poems consider the night, mortality, the past, writers, sunlight, winter, travel, love, politics, memory, and blizzards

Genres: Poetry

81 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Nicholas Christopher was born and raised in New York City. He was educated at Harvard College, where he studied with Robert Lowell and Anthony Hecht. Afterward, he traveled and lived in Europe. He became a regular contributor to the New Yorker in his early twenties, and began publishing his work in other leading magazines, both in the United States and abroad, including Esquire, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, the Nation, and the Paris Review. He has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Poetry, the Paris Review 50th Anniversary Anthology, the Best American Poetry, Poet's Choice, the Everyman's Library Poems of New York and Conversation Pieces, the Norton Anthology of Love, the Faber Book of Movie Verse, and the Grand Street Reader. He has edited two major anthologies himself, Under 35: The New Generation of American Poets (Anchor, 1989) and Walk on the Wild Side: Urban American Poetry Since 1975 (Scribner, 1994) and has translated Martial and Catullus and several modern Greek poets, including George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos. His books have been translated and published many other countries, and he is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from various institutions, including the Guggenheim Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has taught at Yale, Barnard College, and New York University, and is now a Professor on the permanent faculty of the Writing Division of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. He lives in New York City with his wife, Constance Christopher, and continues to travel widely, most frequently to Venice, the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and the Grenadines.

Reviews

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicholas Christopher's poetry here offers stories and meditations which come across in such gorgeous, telling detail, and whether a given poem leans toward the surreal or the emotional, each poem is so crisp that a reader can't help being affected by the vision and the language. More than the other collection I read from him, many of these poems feel almost cinematic in their beginnings--otherworldly, detailed openings to something much larger--but they are always more than simple observations or depictions in the end.

I adore Christopher's poetry, and I'm sure I'll be revisiting this collection in the future.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first became of this book when I was presented a copy as a consolation prize when my collection of poetry lost to this collection. I have forgotten the award for which we both applied. After reading Christoper's work, however, I was not sorry in the least to have lost to such a fabulous collection. The book is filled with wonderful and clever imagery. A true gem!