We are thrilled to be hosting local author Rachel Bower presenting her new poetry collection, Bee: Eighteen poems exploring the ancient and complicated relationship of help and
harm between bees and humans, from Stone Age honey hunters to modern
beekeepers.
Bee reflects on biodiversity loss and climate breakdown, seeking to honour individual
bee species, while connecting to the wider context in which we all live, whether human
or more-than-human. Poems of praise celebrating the wonder of ultra-specific species
adaptations mix with elegy and loss, including a lament for the fragile Cullum’s
Humblebee specimen collected by the Natural History Museum before the bee went
extinct in 1941.
Drawing on careful research and practical knowledge, Rachel Bower explores tangled
histories, such as the export of European honey bees (Apis mellifera) to Australia, or the
work of pioneering women beekeepers and suffragettes who represented defining
moments of female scientific activity.
Both hopeful and despairing, Bee meditates on the sweetness and sting of human
interaction with the rest of the natural world.
spiracle / future
we are praying
for a spiracle
an opening
for space
to breathe
About the author:
Rachel Bower is a poet and novelist based in Sheffield. Her poems and stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including The White Review, Magma, The Rialto and The London Magazine. She had a poem Highly Commended in the Ginkgo Prize 2023 and was shortlisted for the Best Poem of UK Landscape 2023. Her first novel It Comes from the River was published earlier this year by Bloomsbury. Bee is her
third poetry collection.
About Hazel Press:
Hazel Press is an independent publisher focusing on the environment,
the realities of the climate crisis, feminism and the arts. Our titles are
all printed in the UK using pioneering eco-print processes and
materials. See www.hazelpress.co.uk
For more information, review copies and interviews, please contact
Sara Hudston, email sara@hazelpress.co.uk phone 07787 566812.