Poetic Insights

Bot(ship)tle, a new chapbook of poetry by Amanda N. Butler with Dancing Girl Press

I’ve always been fascinated by the ship-in-the-bottle projects, and how some people possess the patience to build a whole ship – with its masts, sails, everything – and manage to fit it inside a bottle. I have a similar fascination in the message in a bottle, how someone’s letter from decades ago can be found shores or oceans away. From romanticized notions to pollution, the ocean and the bottle are intertwined in a story that only humanity can tell.

I’ve combined these fascinations in my new chapbook, Bot(ship)tle. The chapbook is a literary message in a bottle, with themes of love, acceptance, and reflection on my father, who passed when I was young. Vikings, ships, the ocean, and all things nautical are also common themes, so this small collection was both bittersweet and fun to write.