Bee, by Rachel Bower

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.

Rachel Bower

Rachel 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 is published by Bloomsbury. Bee is her third poetry collection.

Eco-print paperback made of 100% recycled paper, printed in Suffolk with non-GM vegetable inks.