Phantom Hue

Schyler Butler was born in Columbus, Ohio, but raised in Central Texas. A graduate of The Ohio State University’s MFA program in Creative Writing, she has received support from the Ohio Arts Council and the Greater Columbus Arts Council. Her work appears in Obsidian, African American Review, Transition, swamp pink, and elsewhere.

"Phantom Hue would like a word with what has occurred. In its varied vision, the past and present gather their present-perfect questions. And then they are posed---toward transmutation. Butler remembers as re-cognition, as reorientation. Phantom Hue's deft poems consider the weight of learning and knowing our histories simultaneously. We can courageously begin with our ‘gold-spun blood,’ but we must also reckon ‘after the ashes settle on our campus rooftops.’ And Butler will ask bravely, beautifully: ‘what can I build from the sown?’"

• IStar-CrossedAmongst ChildrenVariants of the Same Story, IIGirl Remembers a Place Even Columbus Cannot MissBonnaroo, 2012Star-Crossed CaveatReminisceComfortYearnStar-Crossed East to WestMy Mother’s Story Interpreted from a Photographof Her and Her Parents Smiling, 1984In Solidarity with FateIIPost-Colonial TriumphLike CrystalSerenaded By a Prince or SymbolFingerprintsPulled PorkAmerican ArchipelagoBlack BeansResponse/AbilityDream Dialogue Where My Mother’s MotherTalks to Her HusbandBravataWhen a White Boy Says He PrefersFear Response to ReflectionWhere It MayLike Pontius Pilate Washing His HandsMemory of Star-Crossed Leaving FingerprintsThe Inventor of Peanut ButterStar-Crossed Without the SugarA HauntingA Poem for a Daughter, for a SonIIIA PlatterWhat Cannot Be TouchedAs If StillFor Bodies to Whom I Owe My LifeBust YokeDream Dialogue Where I Narrate the Rapeof Great-Great Oma, 1896Variants of the Same Story, ITrying Hard to Find the AnswerWhere Are You, Jessica Dash?What the Star-Crossed NoticeMiscegenationThey Used to Chop Off the PenisA Neighbor Tells What Happened to My Father’sAunt in Chillicothe, 1983Blessing the BreakupGenealogy of WoundsThe Guts That Come with LoveAnd TransmutedWhen I Think About Malcolm XIVInitiationFirst RunWhen I Remember the Same OldThe BlackerDream Dialogue Where I Talk to My FatherLike I’m HonestIntersectional GuillotineWhen You Hear Love TalkinThought Experiment from the VineA Writer Reads at the Library DowntownCento Across the Mutual LandscapeHoodI Have a Photo of My Mother as a ChildClintonville After We Move InFood That Was CheapVStar-Crossed Daughter at 23 MonthsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS