About
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HONEYED RAMBLINGS
By Jill Forster “Honeyed Ramblings” invites readers to ramble through the poems and re-imagine life’s joys and uncertainties. The collection of poems brings focus to images such as the watchful heron that hesitates on a railing, the long sweep of tangerine across the broad sky, tête-à-tête coffee conversations, raiding the vegetable patch, travel and cross cultural coincidence, the light of dawn and dusk, the morning walk, champagne moments and the dusty face of age. The poems help us sway in the sense of the sounds and to listen to the “lull between the waves” - the breath of the heavens themselves. Embracing creativity, we pause to be curious and to wonder at all that is around us whether in human inventiveness or in nature, including the honey bees.
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ISBN: 978-0-9923355-2-6
Paperback, 79pp
Publication Date: October 2015
Paperback, 79pp
Publication Date: October 2015
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Jill Forster
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Inspiration and imagination, these are vital to poetry and to life itself. With this as an essential belief, Jill Forster has produced another volume of poems, "Honeyed Ramblings", in addition to her first poetry volume, "Lullabies". With honeyed threads of ideas and imagery inspired by really seeing and listening to all that is around us, Honeyed Ramblings weaves its way through musings on life and its meanings.
Jill Forster, PhD in educational psychology and curriculum, has taught at schools and lectured at universities, and is currently an educational speaker, consultant, adviser and writer. In addition to her poetry books, she has written "Think about…Creativity" and "Think about…Mentoring". Her numerous published educational articles promote classroom challenge and creativity in our thinking across all fields. |
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Reviews
“Jill Forster uses all the resources of poetry, including rhythm, rhyme and a feeling for the rich texture of words, to illuminate our ordinary world with its drama and sensual pleasure”
“Mellifluous and classical… a delight in word play and rhyme"
“A thread that runs through this striking new collection of poems is drawn from the experience of beekeeping: by observing the social life of bees (‘nature’s non-militant emissaries’) we are able to reflect on the nature of human society”
- Jamie Grant, poet, critic and judge of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
“Mellifluous and classical… a delight in word play and rhyme"
“A thread that runs through this striking new collection of poems is drawn from the experience of beekeeping: by observing the social life of bees (‘nature’s non-militant emissaries’) we are able to reflect on the nature of human society”
- Jamie Grant, poet, critic and judge of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
“A commendable group of poems rich in imagery and poetically skilled…cryptic and introspective” with an “appreciation of the traditions of pattern, rhyme, rhythm and imagery which are the cornerstone of remarkable poetry”
- John Sheely, poet & critic.
- John Sheely, poet & critic.
“a lovely piece of work”
- Mike Gebicki, travel writer.
- Mike Gebicki, travel writer.
Why Bees?
There are a number of reasons: namely WHIMSY, POLITICS in a broad sense and FASHION in the sense of INNOVATION+TRADITION
Starting with the WHIMSICAL Bees signal something lyrical, like their humming, a sound that is mellifluous, from the French /Italian: miel/miele, meaning honey.
Like bees, poetry also can be honey-tongued. I see and hear the bees’ daily rituals as “mellifluous murmurings marching” - the sound and the sense come together in my poem Bee Bourdonnement.
Whimsy also suggests playfulness - in the poem, Bee Business, there is the image of bee legs that “dance in the honeycomb”. And when friends send texts to the effect of “hope you get a buzz out of your day” or we sign off a French text with “Bizzes” … Not to have too romanticized vision of bees of course there has been a near-first -hand experience of an unfortunate stinging incident by a capricious little bee with a big sense of karma or a policy stance on rights and responsibilities. I have actually played on the word too with the title of the poem Bee Politic to remind us of the need to preserve:
A wholesome distillate
Of toil and perseverance
And diligent adherence
To all that matters…
And so the POLITICAL is another reason for attachment to bees. The flight and plight of the bumble bee reminds us to take care of what matters - they are a part of nature's ecological rhythms and rhymes. Certainly we need the industry and effort of bees which the Poet Laureate, Pablo Neruda saw as our “purest labourers.” We need all to be(e) advocates and look to apiculture to help our crops and industry. Hence the question in Honeyed Ramblings: Who will be the bees’ keeper? The 21st century writer, Ede, describes the beekeeper as “mediator between man and nature” but of course economics also mediates and enables livelihoods through beekeeping and manages the flow from jungles and forests to health food stores.
Beekeeping is perhaps the occupation of those fascinated by nature, it gives a different outlook on the world, outside of ourselves so it was a delight to go with a French beekeeper, Jean Claude Ferrier, and learn some secret bee business.
We can see the beehive as a metaphor for human society. In the 1830s, Balzac referred to Paris as the “humming hive” - the “sweetness of its honey” drew people to its society. And of course early French kings and later Napoleon, more politically, adopted the bee, in part, as a symbol of infinite life. Whether beekeepers have hives on the Garnier Opéra in Paris or on the rooftops of Moby’s restaurant at Whale Beach in Sydney, it is good to see an expanding fascination with what is fundamental to our environment.
We might say that the bee is an intercultural envoy. Our own pest-free specimens from Kangaroo Island in South Australia catch “freebee” flights across the globe and “drone”, as it were, in tune with the Qantas engines. The home of the purest bee and of many poets is the Ligurian coast in Italy - hence the poems Ligurian Lovers and Gregarious Ligurians - there they smoke bees away with smouldering coffee beans as they do also on the Turkish coast ; they have in fact used smoke for thousands of years . Clearly the long-standing importance of bees and of honey in different cultures is exemplified by the presence of honey jars in Tutankhamen's tomb.
Honeyed Ramblings is in tune with both a contemporary and a centuries-long preoccupation with bees. If we see FASHION as a combination of both tradition and innovation, then this is the third reason for the attraction to bees. They have long been a part of literary tradition such as in the work of the Latin poet, Virgil, who described the produce from the bees’ community as divine. Further examples are found in the work of French writers from 16th to 19th centuries, and then in the 20th and 21st centuries, for example, the novel the Beekeeper’s Apprentice and the movie Mr. Holmes, both were based on stories about the bee-keeping detective Sherlock Holmes- thus combining the whimsical and the imaginative with the logical and analytical. The Ancient Greek writer, Homer, used the bee as a metaphor for soldiers but in my poem, Bee Bourdonnement, they are nature’s non-militant emissaries:
Hail the new horizons
That offer up their lotus fare:
Nectar of narcissus and pale perfumed pear
Precious pollen of pomegranates.
If you’re not keen to go back to ancient Greek nor have too romanticized a vision , just check Homer Simpson on YouTube for his rant about bees- sometimes the capricious little bee has a big sense of karma.
As winged creatures determined daily to achieve their mission, bees appeal to the imagination which is vital to discovering possibilities and which , as Einstein told us, “takes us everywhere”, not just, from A to B, on a “beeline”, as it were. Bees can be seen as minuscule alchemists, trading in pollen and turning it to gold, as in my poem, Bee Business, where they Hover in liquid licence On pots of nectar gold. In the 16th century Montaigne wrote of bees raiding the thyme and marjoram plants but transforming the pollen into something else - of course remarkable. When humans transform what is already there they may create something original and valuable … which is innovation, such as the revolutionary honey flow device, you may have recently seen reported in the media. Science and industry mimic some of nature's tricks to come up with breakthroughs. Humble in the face of what we don't understand - Tolstoy reminded us that the bee’s purpose is “beyond our comprehension” – perhaps, I’m thinking, the bee is a muse humming its message that we interpret afresh. To do this we need a sense of wonder, curiosity and imagination and these are all vital to innovation and need to be fostered in the classroom and workplace. In the 1870s Victor Hugo urged us to go beyond the wonder of hives and the ant nests to humanly create - including poetry, heroes , monuments and engineering … Hearing our Prime minister talk of innovation - now more than a buzzword - I think the bee is not about to go out of fashion.
Starting with the WHIMSICAL Bees signal something lyrical, like their humming, a sound that is mellifluous, from the French /Italian: miel/miele, meaning honey.
Like bees, poetry also can be honey-tongued. I see and hear the bees’ daily rituals as “mellifluous murmurings marching” - the sound and the sense come together in my poem Bee Bourdonnement.
Whimsy also suggests playfulness - in the poem, Bee Business, there is the image of bee legs that “dance in the honeycomb”. And when friends send texts to the effect of “hope you get a buzz out of your day” or we sign off a French text with “Bizzes” … Not to have too romanticized vision of bees of course there has been a near-first -hand experience of an unfortunate stinging incident by a capricious little bee with a big sense of karma or a policy stance on rights and responsibilities. I have actually played on the word too with the title of the poem Bee Politic to remind us of the need to preserve:
A wholesome distillate
Of toil and perseverance
And diligent adherence
To all that matters…
And so the POLITICAL is another reason for attachment to bees. The flight and plight of the bumble bee reminds us to take care of what matters - they are a part of nature's ecological rhythms and rhymes. Certainly we need the industry and effort of bees which the Poet Laureate, Pablo Neruda saw as our “purest labourers.” We need all to be(e) advocates and look to apiculture to help our crops and industry. Hence the question in Honeyed Ramblings: Who will be the bees’ keeper? The 21st century writer, Ede, describes the beekeeper as “mediator between man and nature” but of course economics also mediates and enables livelihoods through beekeeping and manages the flow from jungles and forests to health food stores.
Beekeeping is perhaps the occupation of those fascinated by nature, it gives a different outlook on the world, outside of ourselves so it was a delight to go with a French beekeeper, Jean Claude Ferrier, and learn some secret bee business.
We can see the beehive as a metaphor for human society. In the 1830s, Balzac referred to Paris as the “humming hive” - the “sweetness of its honey” drew people to its society. And of course early French kings and later Napoleon, more politically, adopted the bee, in part, as a symbol of infinite life. Whether beekeepers have hives on the Garnier Opéra in Paris or on the rooftops of Moby’s restaurant at Whale Beach in Sydney, it is good to see an expanding fascination with what is fundamental to our environment.
We might say that the bee is an intercultural envoy. Our own pest-free specimens from Kangaroo Island in South Australia catch “freebee” flights across the globe and “drone”, as it were, in tune with the Qantas engines. The home of the purest bee and of many poets is the Ligurian coast in Italy - hence the poems Ligurian Lovers and Gregarious Ligurians - there they smoke bees away with smouldering coffee beans as they do also on the Turkish coast ; they have in fact used smoke for thousands of years . Clearly the long-standing importance of bees and of honey in different cultures is exemplified by the presence of honey jars in Tutankhamen's tomb.
Honeyed Ramblings is in tune with both a contemporary and a centuries-long preoccupation with bees. If we see FASHION as a combination of both tradition and innovation, then this is the third reason for the attraction to bees. They have long been a part of literary tradition such as in the work of the Latin poet, Virgil, who described the produce from the bees’ community as divine. Further examples are found in the work of French writers from 16th to 19th centuries, and then in the 20th and 21st centuries, for example, the novel the Beekeeper’s Apprentice and the movie Mr. Holmes, both were based on stories about the bee-keeping detective Sherlock Holmes- thus combining the whimsical and the imaginative with the logical and analytical. The Ancient Greek writer, Homer, used the bee as a metaphor for soldiers but in my poem, Bee Bourdonnement, they are nature’s non-militant emissaries:
Hail the new horizons
That offer up their lotus fare:
Nectar of narcissus and pale perfumed pear
Precious pollen of pomegranates.
If you’re not keen to go back to ancient Greek nor have too romanticized a vision , just check Homer Simpson on YouTube for his rant about bees- sometimes the capricious little bee has a big sense of karma.
As winged creatures determined daily to achieve their mission, bees appeal to the imagination which is vital to discovering possibilities and which , as Einstein told us, “takes us everywhere”, not just, from A to B, on a “beeline”, as it were. Bees can be seen as minuscule alchemists, trading in pollen and turning it to gold, as in my poem, Bee Business, where they Hover in liquid licence On pots of nectar gold. In the 16th century Montaigne wrote of bees raiding the thyme and marjoram plants but transforming the pollen into something else - of course remarkable. When humans transform what is already there they may create something original and valuable … which is innovation, such as the revolutionary honey flow device, you may have recently seen reported in the media. Science and industry mimic some of nature's tricks to come up with breakthroughs. Humble in the face of what we don't understand - Tolstoy reminded us that the bee’s purpose is “beyond our comprehension” – perhaps, I’m thinking, the bee is a muse humming its message that we interpret afresh. To do this we need a sense of wonder, curiosity and imagination and these are all vital to innovation and need to be fostered in the classroom and workplace. In the 1870s Victor Hugo urged us to go beyond the wonder of hives and the ant nests to humanly create - including poetry, heroes , monuments and engineering … Hearing our Prime minister talk of innovation - now more than a buzzword - I think the bee is not about to go out of fashion.
Ravishing Radishes
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In the middle of a sunshiny winter’s day, Stefano Manfredi and I went tip-toeing through the veggie patch and rambling among the radishes. Crouching down over the garden bed, you could practically hear the miniature radishes screeching as he wrenched them from the dirt. Pleased with his new-found loot, we sidetracked to the avocado tree, found some more treasures and commented on the need to look after the bees.
Having taken our seats at the long dining table on the veranda with Stefano, there now appeared as the first lunch course, the dressed radishes - with quality oils, sea salt, home-made bread and pristine presentation. We talked Italian traditions as we munched on the golden gems, fresh and simple and pure in a delicately robust taste. Pairing culinary and literary interests, I pared down the peelings of thoughts from the day and created my own concoction, the poem "The Hors d’oeuvre of Ravishing Radishes". Find it on page 71. |
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