"Sing against the storm’: 10 years of The Moth"

top of page

Broadcasts

Broadcasts

Broadcasts

Cover, Legion, Eleanor Hooker.jpg

"There are chapbooks, and there are chapbooks. And then there is Legion by Eleanor Hooker.

Letterset by hand, crafted in the old style, these 8 poems sing of honeybees and intone the "trembling water of the lake". Eleanor's work is evocative as always, teeming with the profusion of nature and its gifts and the people who interact with these, in good ways and bad. Echoes of Yeats's "bee-loud glade" come to mind, not just because of the theme but for the texture of the language too.

But Eleanor's words focus on the feminine, weaving images like spells cast over the page, words to harness the energy of the natural world that most of us don't understand but that lead the poet "to wheedle with words".

The honeybee with all its associations - productivity, sweet honey, its sting, the drone reproducing only to die - is a charming metaphor for the many dichotomies of life as well as the greed that abounds in society, where the bee-elect is "trapped in the syrup of its own success".

A beautiful artefact made by Hans van Eijk of Bonnefant Press, Maastricht, Holland, with frontispiece by Jeanie Tomanek."

Anamaría Crowe Serrano - poet and author

"There are chapbooks, and there are chapbooks. And then there is Legion by Eleanor Hooker.

Letterset by hand, crafted in the old style, these 8 poems sing of honeybees and intone the "trembling water of the lake". Eleanor's work is evocative as always, teeming with the profusion of nature and its gifts and the people who interact with these, in good ways and bad. Echoes of Yeats's "bee-loud glade" come to mind, not just because of the theme but for the texture of the language too.

But Eleanor's words focus on the feminine, weaving images like spells cast over the page, words to harness the energy of the natural world that most of us don't understand but that lead the poet "to wheedle with words".

The honeybee with all its associations - productivity, sweet honey, its sting, the drone reproducing only to die - is a charming metaphor for the many dichotomies of life as well as the greed that abounds in society, where the bee-elect is "trapped in the syrup of its own success".

A beautiful artefact made by Hans van Eijk of Bonnefant Press, Maastricht, Holland, with frontispiece by Jeanie Tomanek."

Anamaría Crowe Serrano - poet and author

Music Art

Music Art

Search

Eleanor Hooker
Mar 31, 2020
1 min read

Updated: Dec 16, 2020

Warm congratulations to Rebecca O'Connor and Will Govan on ten fab years of The Moth Magazine, here’s to many more. And if you haven’t already done so, subscribe!

It was lovely to contribute to The Moth Magazine's 10th birthday celebrations featured in the Irish Times today. Thanks so much to Maria McManus for featuring my poem 'Storm Song' on the Poetry Jukebox replay, and to Tade Ipadeola who selected it last year for 'Another Country' a curation of poems in response to the work of CS Lewis. Read More

Recent Posts

Eco Lines: Kildare Libraries’ Festival of Climate, Readers, Writers and Changemakers

28 September Eco Lines was brilliantly curated by Kerri ní Dochartaigh - a day of talks following an initiative by Kildare County Council...

Breda Wall Ryan - friend, poet & author

Breda Wall Ryan was a person for whom I had the greatest love and admiration, as a kind friend and as a gifted poet. Her advocacy for my...

Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School 2024

It was a huge honour to have curated the second annual Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School (18-22 September) in Cloughjordan. The artists,...

Comments

bottom of page