The Poet and the Bees

November 25, 2024
In the first of this collection of poems, Novesky compares the brief life and enduring work of bees with those of beekeeper and poet Sylvia Plath (1932–1963): “Love, bees don’t live long..../ But honey lives forever. Words, too.” Four delicate, understated poems follow, one for each season. Romantic, flower-sprigged watercolors depict Plath’s face close-up as she studies the hive in “Spring.” In “Summer,” Plath writes “in the blue hour” before her children awake, navigates domestic matters, then checks the bees; Love paints her defeated, head bowed in arms, covered with red welts. But in “Fall,” she is publishing poems and standing amid the bees’ swarm. In “Winter,” she lines up jars of honey and dreams of the future, writing “one last bee poem.... The last word—spring.” Plath’s death by suicide isn’t mentioned; instead, the work leaves behind a sense of her solitude, competing demands on her time, and the way both hive and poet navigate seasonal change. More about the subject concludes. Ages 4–8.

Starred review from January 1, 2025
In narrative verse organized from "Spring" to "Winter," Novesky explores Sylvia Plath's beekeeping in the year preceding the poet's death. As she mentions in a note, Novesky--herself a poet and beekeeper--takes inspiration from Plath's letters and poetry, including several bee-focused poems that conclude the posthumously published collectionAriel. (As Novesky explains, she draws from the revised edition that aligns with Plath's own intended order of the poems, rather than her husband Ted Hughes' arrangement.) In "Spring," Plath's sleeveless dress and palpable fear during her introduction to her bees derive from her poem "The Bee Meeting." Novesky's often-exquisite verse intentionally echoes Plath's language, including thrice-repeated words and phrases. Lines in "Summer" reveal the necessity of Plath's early-morning writing: "In the blue hour, her hour, / the poet writes / until the babies wake / just past dawn. / She writeslike mad, / a poem, a poem, a poem." Italicized phrases and lines are pulled directly from Plath's own writing, a fact Novesky doesn't specifically acknowledge. Love's muted watercolor-and-ink illustrations imbue the book with a fitting poignancy, contrasting practical details--such as the poet caring for her hive or her children--with tender images of flowers, seasonal changes, bees, and jarred honey. The opening and closing illustrations depict snowdrops, completing the seasonal cycle. Novesky successfully refocuses the lens from Plath's tragic death to the poet as artist, centering her hopeful ambition and keen relationship with nature. Attentive, deeply respectful, lovely. (author's note, photograph of Plath)(Picture-book biography. 5-9)

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March 1, 2025
Novesky provides a snapshot of Plath (1932-1963) inspired by her poems and letters about her brief experience with beekeeping. The text moves through the seasons, beginning and ending with spring, in spare, graceful free-verse poems with hints of rhyme and steady internal rhythm and occasionally incorporating (in italics) Plath's own words and phrases: "It is the golden season. / Everything glowing as if lit from within. / The poet can glow and burn, / as if lit from within, too." Practical details about beekeeping are integrated, such as proper garb, how to check a hive and frame, getting stung, pollination, and the production of honey. Love's watercolor illustrations depict Plath (and her braided "crown" of hair) caring for bees and writing poetry as well as the landscape, flowers, and vegetation and many bees up close and in swirls and swarms. The tension between Plath's melancholic moods and lyrical poetry and the hopeful, careful process of beekeeping is captured beautifully here. In the endnote, Novesky provides a brief biographical sketch of Plath and explains her motivation for this story: she wanted readers (who may here be encountering Plath for the first time) to know that the poet was "so much more than her legendary death." Sylvia Vardell

(Copyright 2025 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)