Driving to the Bees

“In these visceral, lovely poems, Maggie Schwed meditates on farming as both a vocation and a metaphor for creation and self-knowledge. There’s transcendence and bounty here, but the minds at work in these formally inventive poems are too complex and restless to settle for long. Instead, Schwed finds in the difficult lives of animals and the hard work of farming moments for understanding familial love, harrowing violence, accident and unpredictable joy. These lush, constantly shifting landscapes reflect back on us, offering striking revelations about our own moments of human beauty, loss, and inescapable mortality. Driving to the Bees is a thoughtful and deeply moving collection.”

-Kevin Prufer

When I was told that the poems in this book were mostly about farm life, I don’t know what I expected-traditional, pastoral, perhaps like those I’d seen before. But the poems in Driving to the Bees surprised me. They are pastoral, yes, but also fresh and original…exciting in their use of language and their imagery. Here are the old themes: death, amazement at life, grief and joy, done up new. To read this fine work was a joyful experience. I love this book: poem after poem, so exact, yet startling in its imagery, so vivid, so alive. They delighted me.”

-Patricia Fargnoli

Experiencing our potential intimate relationships with nature, farm animals, bees and much of the life around us, through Maggie’s poems is sheer delight. No one will want to miss out on this joyful experience!”

-Frederick Kirschenmann