Watching Bees - Softcover

Levin, Michael H

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798888383629

Publisher: Finishing Line Press, 2023

Synopsis

Watching Bees, the author's fourth collection, brings together thirty mostly short poems, many previously published in (e.g.) Scientific American, some already anthologized. Speaking in voices that move easily between different forms, these poems inhabit lives ranging from Noah's wife reluctantly boarding the Ark, through Trojan warriors on the eve of defeat or survivors of the Black Death or Stalin's Terror, to sharp-edged current political comment. Beneath them simmer resonant tensions between family members - and between past and present, memory and personal responsibility, despair and hope. As the speaker notes in "Kitchen Talk, "The recipes I'm bequeathed are meals / for fishes, splattered by spoons and sauces, / stained with secrets." That blend of ironic detachment and feeling is the beating heart of this book.

About this title

About the Author

MICHAEL H. LEVIN is a lawyer, solar energy developer and writer based in Washington DC. His work has appeared on stage, in three previous chapbooks, and in numerous anthologies and periodicals, and has received poetry and feature journalism awards. He is co-author (with his life partner Nora Jean Levin) of the concert documentary Two Pianos: Playing for Life (2018-) and the full-length nonfiction volumes A Border Town in Poland: A 20th Century Memoir (2021) and Firebird: The Musical Life and Times of Rebecca Burstein-Arber (2023).

Edition details

• Publisher: Finishing Line Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798888383629
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 46