I wouldn't read this to be entertained so much as to understand the less-visible things in life. Maybe not "less-visible." More underappreciated rather than unseen.

Reading this was watching stars burst in slow motion, or atoms colliding to become molecules. There was also something curiously beautiful about the creation of the human heart, as told in the selection "Cardiac Knotting." Though "Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning" was an equally interesting addition.

There were a few sections that were slower than others, but the more standout pieces were well worth it.

3.5 stars

Thank you Netgalley, publishers, and the author for an arc of this book

Liles's poetic voice in "Bees, and After" achieves remarkable synthesis between scientific precision and lyrical intensity, creating poems judge Rae Armantrout describes as "dense, sonically gorgeous studies of various natural things." His language maintains microscopic attention to detail while simultaneously opening toward cosmic significance, finding in specific creatures—"light, bees, minerals, shellfish and crabs, insects"—apertures to larger understanding.

A reader can choose to read John Liles’ poetry collection Bees, and After in several ways (speaking as a casual reader of poetry). One way is slower, taking one’s time to piece together (and possibly look up) the perhaps unfamiliar and sometimes arcane scientific language, words like allelopathy, diatomaceous, or mesenchymals that are scattered throughout the collection. Reading this way reveals Lile’s remarkable awareness of the organic and inorganic world on a level most of us do not see or consider, as well as it highlights his precision in use of those terms. It’s a brave choice, but one that extends the idea of “nature” poetry beyond its usual incarnation.

On the other hand, one can just glide right by those unfamiliar words, following along with the no-less-precise, no-less-original images and language that require no further exploration while enjoying the warmly intimate addresses to the creatures, minerals, and other elements we share this planet and sometimes our body with, whether it’s a swarm of bees, a moth, some quartz, or our own heart. Do not lot those above words (or their brethren) scare you off. Not only can one follow the poems (not easily, don’t get me wrong—they do require attention), but there is an emotionality here despite (perhaps sometimes because of) that scientific language. And I have to say that Hall kills his endings, more so than most poets I read (again, as a casual reader). I found the payoffs time and time again were well worth the work even if an individual poem didn’t full engage me.

Finally, one could also easily simply revel in the sound play that permeates these poems, a wonderfully sprightly mix of consonance, alliteration, and near rhyme. As with the “b” sound here, in “Solar Photon”, where the title particle will
“Break/the body to burn,/butcher, and backbone/an atmosphere’s carbon”.

Or the interior rhyme of “stalagmite brush hushed a sea sponge,” the near-rhyme of “to spark open wax …/gristle and grasp.” The collection is rife with music, and one can enjoy it for that alone.

These poems, as noted, are not easy. And I confess to struggling with some, either to follow or in terms of an emotional connection. But even in those cases. I fully enjoyed their sound elements and, in the vast majority, felt an impact in their closing few lines. It’d say they repay the work to fully grasp them or if you want to just let them wash over you.
3.5

The cover drew me in. The title was intriguing and gave a taste of the style of poetry. As someone who is a fan of E. E. Cummings' poetry, Liles' style was reminiscent of it in the way that he put his words together so that I felt them beyond their meanings.

After seeing so much poetry about mountains, planets, the sky and it's stars, it was refreshing and new to read about the miniscule and that which we cannot see. We begin with "Solar photon", something so small but so essential to all life, so, in a way, we begin at the beginning. Liles' transition from the half lives of compounds to "Half-life (animal)" was brilliant. His ability to humanize even the nonliving is wonderful and absolutely changed my perspective of the world.

The poetry was highly scientific. This is both a pro and a con. As someone who is studying chemistry, I never thought OIL RIG could become poetry --- it was delightful. However, in some parts it was so scientific that it limits its accessibility to even the more scientifically educated reader. The footnotes were helpful, but often not enough. Though, I found I could manage with the feeling amd context of the words that I didn't not know.

Overall, Liles' ability to employ words in such new ways is excellent, but the effect of this was perhaps inhibited by my lack of knowledge. I think that mixing science and poetry is lovely because poets may not often want to read about science, and scientists may not often want to read poetry, but, like this, these paths can cross. For me, personally, some poems hit harder than others, which explains my rating, but I'm glad I read this collection.

Thank you Netgalley, Yale University Press, and John Liles for sending me this advanced review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was like if poetry and a nature textbook had a baby.

Very dense and info packed, but strangely mesmerizing at the same time.

Overall, Liles' Bees, and After was a hit or miss poetry collection for me. Liles alternated between a very economical, abstract style, and a more confessional, evocative style. The latter style was far more enjoyable, inserting human experience within Liles' reflections upon nature's seasonal and life cycles. Poems like 'Half-life (opal)' took a 'hydrated and amorphous form of silica' and applied it to our sense of self and body - 'you are honey soft' / 'you / nothing like the other, hold / for a moment / one body of light'. Similarly, when the animal was used to understand relation between human beings in 'Restful amyg' - 'an animal I / flex into a dark so / easy'. And finally, the application of scientific terms to human experience was far more moving than when simply used in the abstract pieces - 'when the heart meets her / myocytes, she's electric' [My knowing better].

I am usually not a huge poetry lover because the metaphors and symbolism tend to go right over my head. But, I do find myself gravitating towards the more straightforward poetry. When I saw that this compilation was about science, I knew I wanted to check it out.

This one is right up my alley in terms of straightforwardness. However, I do believe that this was meant for people that have more scientific knowledge than me. I took a year of science courses in college, but there were a lot of words and concepts in here that I did not fully understand, which detracted from my experience. I do think that academics in biology will probably love this, and it’s such a great way to instigate a crossover of the STEM and creative fields. There are many people within STEM majors/careers that would not normally pick up a poetry book because of the same reasons as I mentioned above. But this allows them to experience poetry in a way that is directly targeted to them.

I loved that the majority of the poems focus on existentialism. That has always been my favorite poetry topic and to combine it with nature visuals causes you to think more critically about real issues.

Thank you to Yale University Press for allowing me to read a copy of this compilation through Netgalley.

Bees, and After propone una mirada profunda sobre la conexión entre la naturaleza y lo humano, con imágenes potentes que invitan a repensarnos como parte del ecosistema, no por encima de él. Poemas como Without Which y The Steady State logran transmitir esa sensación de que el corazón humano, como un panal, no se sostiene solo sino a través del contacto y la interacción con el entorno. Es una metáfora hermosa: no sobrevivimos aislados, sino gracias a lo que absorbemos del mundo y de quienes nos rodean.

Me gustó mucho cómo el autor cruza ciencia y poesía, aunque justamente eso fue lo que a veces me generó cierta distancia. El lenguaje técnico o más "biológico" me hizo sentir como si estuviera en una clase de ciencias naturales (¡pero en el buen sentido!). Aun así, esa elección estilística también impidió que conectara emocionalmente con algunos textos.

Hubo imágenes y líneas que me impactaron, sin duda, y otras que me dejaron algo indiferente. Creo que es una colección que puede resonar de forma muy distinta según el lector. Personalmente, si bien no me llegó de lleno, valoro la originalidad de la propuesta y sin dudas me interesaría leer más de este autor en el futuro.

Una lectura que invita a detenerse y observar nuestra naturaleza compartida, aunque no siempre logre conmover.

It's a 3.5 for me. It is a book of science poetry, written well but I did not connect with the poems. I am a STEM major so I was looking forward to read this book. The poetry I usually read is simple and direct (Rupi Kaur, r.h. sin). I could see and feel the passion of the author for science and nature but there were poems that I couldn't connect with. There were poems where the science was so complex I had to search for the definitions of certain words. And though it is done right, and in a beautiful way I just couldn't connect with it. It felt like I would connect with one poem and then feel disoriented for the next 7.

Bees, and After (Volume 119) by John Liles

4.5

A dense & gorgeous look at the natural world around us.
What I loved 💕
💕the way the poetry highlights nature
💕 Looks at us as equal to other creatures
💕some fabulous poem title like ‘Amnesic Shellfish poisoning’
& ‘Head lost illuminating’
💕a younger poets collection

Surprise me 😮
😮 The poems feel more scientific than emotional at times

Quotes:
“when the dark goes down
And you are photon-lonely”

Ideal reader ⭐️:
⭐️ People looking for a poetry collection that is more scientific
⭐️ People looking for a poetry collection that centres animals

Bees, and After is undeniably a beautifully crafted collection. From the language to the attention to the natural world, a vivid reading experience was delivered. However, with that being said, this collection jsust didn't quite click with me personally. I truly admired the craftmanship and themes all through this collection, I just felt distant from the poems and couldn't completely connect with them in the way I'd hiped. Still, I can see why others would love this and would recommend them giving it a try if poems hevaily rooted in science and nature interest them

Poetry, for me, comes down to a marriage of imagery and emotion. I need both to be present, within a structure that creates rhythm. While Liles’s ideas brim with creativity, his approach is too detached — despite clearly having a lot of love for our planet in his daily life, Liles does not allow his tenderness to seep into his poetry; only once does he employ a more sentimental tone, in Woodlouse, and it works so excellently I am all the sadder he did not go that way for his other poems. Nature poetry is my soft spot, and though I don’t always find the form to be well thought out, I always value the emotional investment of the poets: think Mary Oliver, her love almost beats like a heart of its own through her poetry. That’s what I really wanted from this collection too. I’m very sorry to be writing a negative review, especially because Liles seems like a sweet person. But I also know there are many readers who appreciate contemporary poetry way more than I do, and I believe they’ll find Bees, and After more delightful than I did.

DNF at 23%
Confusing is an understatement. I have no idea what the poems were about. They were either too experimental or too unedited. Either way, I couldn't even understand what the author was trying to say.

Sounded like my cup of tea; science crosses poetry.
Perhaps partially because I had written a couple of similarly themed poems, I expected to see longer, more detailed or differently-themed poems.

I don’t know why these poetry talking about... chemical elements? I was expecting something more beautiful than this. But I guess most of the beauty was already taken by the cover.

I really enjoyed Bees, and After. As someone with a science background and a love for all things biological, the use of scientific language throughout the collection really excited me. Many of the poems feel like a blend of poetic expression and educational insight—especially those with added factual notes, which made it feel like a two-for-one experience: learning something new while enjoying the beauty of the writing.

I also appreciated the intentional use of white space and scattered formatting. The spacing forces you to slow down and absorb each word, creating a rhythm that feels both thoughtful and fluid.

If I had one critique, it would be the occasional overuse of certain words or phrases, which started to feel a bit repetitive across the collection.

Bees, and After is a poignant reminder that nature and animalism extend to humans. We are part of the Earth’s ecosystem and survive on its offerings, as is made evident in ‘Without Which’. The direct addressing of nature/earth as “you” in ‘Without Which’ rekindles the reader’s intimacy with the planet. That “you lend honey bees/kindred ignitions/into the blue/unforgiving” serves as a reminder that without the gentle generosity of nature, we would not endure on this planet. For that we owe the planet gentleness and kindness too. After all, “this is how we survive”: by the hand of nature that provides all we need.

In these poems, human kind is reduced, or perhaps elevated, to the level of our animal counterpoints. In ‘The Steady State’, “what bleeds/our honey alights/our hearts”, making a beehive of the human heart. And I think that is something beautiful, to turn the beating of a heart, which implies a purely self-sustaining action into a cooperative act. The creation of honey comes from the effort of many bees collecting pollen from the outside world and bringing it back to the hive. In drawing the necessary parallels in this metaphor, the sustaining of the heart, of our humanity, is not an isolated act, but something that is made possible by our interactions with the world around us. We are sustained by that which we love and draw into our heart, creating our own sweetness.

While there were some metaphors that really struck a chord with me, I did feel slightly jarred by the absence of an obvious cadence to the poetry and some of the word-choices. That being said, the latter were clearly intentionally made and speak to the intersection of science and nature, so I do understand why the poet made these decisions, and this is really more a matter of personal taste than a comment on the poet’s capabilities as an author.

Overall, these poems oddly made me feel like I was back in a biology classroom, but in the best way possible. There were definitely standout lines and individual poems, however, I think my capacity to emotionally connect with the poems was thwarted by some of the scientific language. It created a degree of separation from the poems that seemed to contradict the intention of the poems to break down barriers between humans and nature. I would absolutely be intrigued by the author’s future works, given his deftness in drawing parallels between nature and human experience.

Poetry meets science in this collection that reflects on our fragile world and life itself. I found it very interesting to have poetry about chemistry and the formation of life, and I appreciated the explanations and additional notes for those of us who are not savvy in these areas. While a lot of the science went over my head, I fully respect this concept of art meeting alchemy.

Thank you to Yale University Press and NetGalley for this book for review.

I found Liles to be both strange and sharp. Reading these made me feel like I was back in my bio classes at Madison. There were standout lines, and standout individual poems, but not all of them sparked a strong feeling for me.

I normally prefer not to rate poetry collections unless I have particularly strong opinions either way. My feelings here were mixed.

Thank you to Yale University Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.

Here's my honest take on it.

This book of poetry was truly disappointing read for a book of poetry. Despite my anticipation, I couldn't get into it. I found myself skimming through most of the poems, hoping for a spark of interest. Instead, I found myself getting bored. Overall, I didn't enjoy the book.