Lyn Moir
Review
The Bees, Sally Evans
The Bees, Sally Evans, 2008, diehard Poetry. £6.50 ISBN 0 9462308-7 0
Sally Evans’ The Bees is difficult to classify: highly entertaining, thought provoking, a tour de force, 84 landscape pages of terza rima, with elegant illustrations by Reinhard Behrens. Is it a story for children? Is it an allegory? Its title suggests it is about bees, but the cover illustration shows an elephant knocking over a hot dog stand. Confused?
Don’t be. Read it and be amazed. This is an epic poem on many levels. There is indeed a narrative, about bees and about an elephant (in Scotland, yes, but we are of course suspending our disbelief), and there is also philosophy, history, politics, sociology, language (English, Scots and Gaelic), linguistics… There is bee history and human history, with wry comments in Evans’ unique voice. Past and present intermingle, always rooted in the land, the soil, with which she identifies.
This reviewer is not a fan of long poems, finds it difficult to keep her interest throughout, but she read The Bees at one sitting, riveted to the page, and finished it feeling joyful. Do buy it. Do read it.
Page(s) 57
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