Author Description

Not Black or White, Just Butterflies by Lydia Potter is a luminous collection of 50 poems that challenges our tendency toward rigid, binary thinking — inviting readers instead into a more expansive, nuanced way of experiencing the world. Potter’s free-form writing style is itself a statement of purpose. For a poet who considers freedom her native language, the verse breathes accordingly — unstructured, unhurried, alive. She draws deeply from the natural world, using it as both backdrop and metaphor, while pairing her words with a stunning catalog of butterfly photographs she has personally captured across many seasons. The result is a volume that engages the senses on every page, where image and verse work in harmony to slow the reader down and invite genuine presence. At its heart, this anthology is a meditation on transformation. Potter returns again and again to themes of change, impermanence, and the quiet courage required to evolve. She reminds us that within chaos - even within our darkest moments - love, joy, humility, peace, and stillness remain available to those willing to look. Her work cautions against the seduction of rigidity, suggesting that when we see the world only in absolutes, we risk missing the sunrise entirely. Her poem “The Edge of Always” captures this tension with particular grace: “Living isn’t always great or exceptional or fine or perfect or grave or hopeless or somber or awful, Love and fear competing for equal time.” It is a line that honors the full complexity of human experience — the push and pull of connection, the breathlessness of being truly alive — without resolving it too neatly. Not Black or White, Just Butterflies is a timely and tender offering — a refuge of beauty, reflection, and wonder for readers navigating a world often defined by division and fear.