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It was the aesthetics of The Pollination Field that first piqued my interest. With a fairy-tale font title and a close-up display of a bee, dragonflies, and flowers, both in colour and monochrome, the book cover was an irresistible invitation.

Like a poetic story, an enchanting blend of mythology, pollinators, and feminism unfolded before me when I opened the book. The fairy tale-like imagery in the poem “Preface: Origin” hooked me:

There is more than one queen: a string of them, one transforming into

another, swirls of sequinned, gossamer gowns that spiral out as they dance—

one queen dying, and then the other one arriving.

Within the book are layers of eroticism, exploring the growth and changes women experience over time, beginning with the myth inside the evolution of the original Queen Bee in “ii) Once Upon a Time“:

She felt it in her core, their coming and then their arrival.  Sensed their

spinning at her root, in her gut, in the bird cage of her chest, and in the

centre of her forehead—third eye—the place where dreams were spun,

conjured like wax honeycombs.

One of my favourite poems in the anthology, “When the Bees Fly Out of Your Mouth”, captures a common experience women face, using the imagery of bees to highlight the cruel words that wound them and the pain they cause.

Six weeks later and I’ll still remember it,

recall the bees throwing themselves suicidal

out of your mouth and onto my living room floor,

so their wings were crushed in the chaos.

Another favourite is “Vintage Wedding Gown”, which beautifully captures a poignant reflection on a woman’s life:

Here, I wonder if marriage had suited her, beyond the day she wore

the pretty dress.  All yellow silk.  We sold our family house

and took apart the leftover memories of our parents’ lives—

bundled everything into Rubbermaid bins that would live

in the basement, unopened for years.  Wounds, trauma, love.

Beyond the realm of mythology, some of my favourite poems connect the world of bees to both the present and the past, such as in “Apian Architecture”:

Create honeycombed majesty,

hexagons as holding places—

architectural whimsy spiraling.

Hives

grow

crystalline.

Worker bees

follow

algorithms

embedded

deep

in genes.

And in “Discoscapa apicula”:

Fossil bee now, ambered.  Beetle larvae are ready to grow,

            hatch, pollinate the world

one flower at a time. Prehistoric bees & beetles,

            caught in a Polaroid snap.

Some of the poems explore our silent acceptance in the slow decline of essential pollinators. One of my favourites is “Milkweed Mourning”:

Who are you, to stand by silently, without witness? Shame

            is a black velvet dress with broken ribs

ripping through it.  Three of Swords: the place where

            the heart used to beat.

This collection also explores death, including both the unnatural deaths caused by environmental harm and the natural cycles, like a queen bee’s replacement by her daughter. In contrast, some poems delve into the human experience of death, a theme distinct, yet subtly linked to the others. My favourites include: “In the Bag I Brought Home from Palliative Care on the Night My Mother Died” and “The Sadness is on Me”.

From “In the Bag I Brought Home from Palliative Care on the Night My Mother Died”:

her stories, remembered, and that I should have written down

on paper, where they could be kept, safe;

lilacs, peonies, California poppies, and peppermint—for smelling,

or putting in iced tea on hot July days;

a paperback mystery, the page corner bent big, her bookmark

left behind—never used.

From “The Sadness is on Me”:

The fossilized cloves that nail themselves

into the thick peel of my mother’s orange pomander

mummify any suggestion of decay or loss.

It felt like the poetry book was a linguistic collage of magic mirroring the natural world, exploring varied themes that, while seemingly unrelated, ultimately converged. The author’s notes at the end of the book detail the inspiration for some of her poems, and after finishing the collection, rereading the poems with this context illuminated them.

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The Pollination Field is Kim Fahner‘s sixth full-length collection of poetry. A former Poet Laureate for the City of Greater Sudbury, where she lives and writes, Kim Fahner is also the author of a novel and two poetry chapbooks.

Renee Cronley is a writer from Manitoba that stepped away from nursing to prioritize her children and has been channeling her knowledge and experiences into a poetry book about nursing burnout.  Renee can be found at https://www.reneecronley.com/ 

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