June is a strange month for bees. On the one hand, it seems that everything should be blooming, but on the other, we get what beekeepers call the June gap – a sudden and significant reduction in pollen and nectar, which means that honey bees are at risk of starvation. This is a phenomenon of …
Author Archives: Rachel Bower
Festival of Debate
It’s awesome to see South Yorkshire’s Festival of Debate back with a packed programme after everything had to be cancelled at the start of the pandemic. One of the events that promises to be brilliant is Helen Mort in conversation with professional climber Shauna Coxsey MBE about her new book A Line Above the Sky …
Let’s Talk About Cough
It’s exciting to be working with other artists, researchers and facilitators on the Let’s Talk About Cough story exchange. It’s an online creative project, which will bring together people who’ve lived with cough, carers and researchers to share stories and knowledge in friendly, informal sessions. For some people coughs can become long-term and researchers in …
Poetry Film: Water Birth
It’s been wonderful working with the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation and Poet in the City on a new film of my poem, “Water Birth.” The poem is about the babies born in the Mediterranean Sea, many of them in treacherous conditions or on rescue boats. The film is out now, directed Matthew Thompson: This poem …
Hive Fiction Workshops
If you’re a new or emerging fiction writer aged 17-30 based in the North of England, there’s still time to apply for the subsidised 6-week Hive Online Fiction Programme I’m running with Hive South Yorkshire, starting on Thursday 10th February! The sessions will be weekly on Zoom (Thursdays, 6-8pm) and it will be super friendly …
Poetry Film: From Blossoms
It was such an honour to make a film of one of my favourite poems with the Adrian Brinkerhoff Foundation, directed by Matthew Thompson and produced with Poet in the City. Li-Young Lee‘s “From Blossoms” explores joy and loss, darkness and light, sugar and dust. It is one of those enviable poems that powerfully connects …
Bees, bees, bees!
Winter is a quieter time for beekeeping, but I’ve been busy over the last few months writing, filming and talking about bees! You can read my article about the beauty of beekeeping (and collecting a swarm of honey bees!) in Sheffield’s brilliant Now Then magazine. I was also commissioned to write a new poem for …
Review: Dream Catcher 43
This is the proof of my review of Alison Lock’s Lure and Sarah Wragg’s Ghost Walk, published in Dream Catcher 43. The issue is now available to order. Alison Lock, Lure. Cleckheaton: Calder Valley Poetry, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-9160387-6-9 Alison Lock’s Lure is a long, pamphlet-length poem, that narrates the speaker’s return to a Yorkshire millpond: …
New Collection: Available Now
“A stunning collection – moving, uplifting and timely.” Yvette Huddleston, Yorkshire Post My new poetry collection, These Mothers of Gods, is now available to buy! The book pushes towards a more expansive understanding of ‘motherhood’, inclusive of broader urgent issues about gender and our collective responsibilities for lives, environments and natural worlds. I’ll be reading …
Pre-Order New Collection
I am delighted that my new poetry collection, These Mothers of Gods, is now available to pre-order from Fly on the Wall Press. The book is out on 16 July and all pre-orders come with a free e-book. The book seeks to recover the lived experiences of women who have often appeared only fleetingly in …
Writing the Climate
I’ve been thinking (and writing) a lot recently about the climate emergency, and its unequal impact on different communities across the world. I am delighted that one of my new stories relating to this is published in The Hopper today. If you’re interested in reading and writing more about the climate, poet Linda France is …
Rachel Bower 