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A review by littlerah
The Bee Hut by Dorothy Porter
3.0
Another Bee read.
I think it's strange how few Melbourne-based poets I have read from. And to find this collection, published posthumously, it's a kind of sadness that is evoked. You want to learn more and find community and solace, especially as another poet.
"I hold in my hand
the greedy, bleeding
pen
that has always
gorged itself" (19).
'The Bee Hut' is a really bold collection of poems that Porter wrote before her death. In the collection you can taste her stubbornness and her love for the world around her as she writes of varying places, of Egypt, of Jerusalem. This collection feels like it is trying to capture every last memory before it is forgotten. It's almost painful, I felt I could sense her death - as a reader you knew it was coming even if you were unaware of her history.
"time is melting
everything I remember
into a soft silt
shifting under the mud-mangrove
smell of the bay" (74).
There are a number of powerful poems in this, and it's very clear you are lucky to read them. Encouraged to adventure into those small spaces that have brought you hope and love, even those as simple as a bee hut.
My favourites include:
Blackberries (19)
The Enchanted Ass (21)
II. What a Plunge! (28)
The Ninth Hour (37)
Lucky (133).
I think it's strange how few Melbourne-based poets I have read from. And to find this collection, published posthumously, it's a kind of sadness that is evoked. You want to learn more and find community and solace, especially as another poet.
"I hold in my hand
the greedy, bleeding
pen
that has always
gorged itself" (19).
'The Bee Hut' is a really bold collection of poems that Porter wrote before her death. In the collection you can taste her stubbornness and her love for the world around her as she writes of varying places, of Egypt, of Jerusalem. This collection feels like it is trying to capture every last memory before it is forgotten. It's almost painful, I felt I could sense her death - as a reader you knew it was coming even if you were unaware of her history.
"time is melting
everything I remember
into a soft silt
shifting under the mud-mangrove
smell of the bay" (74).
There are a number of powerful poems in this, and it's very clear you are lucky to read them. Encouraged to adventure into those small spaces that have brought you hope and love, even those as simple as a bee hut.
My favourites include:
Blackberries (19)
The Enchanted Ass (21)
II. What a Plunge! (28)
The Ninth Hour (37)
Lucky (133).