If Bees Are Few: A Hive of Bee Poems by James P Lenfestey, Editor

300 Pages
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, Univ of Minnesota Press
Release Date: May 30, 2016

Nonfiction, Poetry, Insects, Environmental, Climate Change, Bees

The title of the book comes from a poem by Emily Dickinson. This is a lovely collection of poems related to bees, the people who help them, and the environment. There are many days when I sit outside and watch the bees after a seed pod opens on a palm tree. They dance among the flowers gathering nectar for the hive.

The editor recommends reading this book outside while enjoying the bees. I completely agree with him. If you love bees, and who doesn’t, and poetry, you may enjoy reading these poems.

I was really looking forward to reading some lovely bee poems that I received from Netgalley but this anthology had a sting in the tail. Some were lovely such as Emily Dickinson's
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.
but some were shocking - in the sense of shockingly poorly written and shockingly offensive. Take the one by Sherman Alexie:
The bees are gone.
We need new bees
Or we are ******
Invective Against the Bumblebee by Diane Lockward was another one that was shocking and very anti-bee! I was disappointed.

This book's title is from one of my favorite Dickinson poems! The poems are beautiful by themselves, plus it is important to draw attention to bees, since they are in decline yet so important.

Excellent collection of poems just for poetry's sake with the added benefit of bringing attention to the threat of loosing our bees.

This was an enjoyable, well-done read. I appreciate the variety of poems and also the education for those of us unfamiliar with bees embedded in the poems. This read helped me realize bees' importance and the readings themselves did not disappoint.