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Requeening: Poems – National Poetry Series Winner on the Matriarchal Beehive, Family, and Grief
“A rare feat for any book of poems, let alone a debut, in that the lines, wrought with such deft precision and care, mark the sum total of a life richly lived and felt at the seat of poetry...These poems care, first and foremost, for what they write of and through, which is a much needed—yet increasingly rare—achievement.” -- Ocean Vuong Engaging the matriarchal structure of the beehive, Amanda Moore explores the various roles a woman plays in the family, the home, and the world at large. Beyond the productivity and excess, the sweetness and sting, Requeening brings together poems of motherhood and daughterhood, an evolving relationship of care and tending, responsibility and joy, dependence and deep love. The poems that anchor this collection don’t shy away from the inevitability of a hive’s collapse and consider the succession of “requeening” a hive as “a new heart ready to be fed and broken and fed again.” The collapse is both physical—there are poems of illness and recovery—and emotional, as the mother-daughter relationship shifts, the daughter becoming separate, whole, and poised to displace. The liminal spaces these poems traverse in human relationships is echoed in a range of poetic and hybrid form, offering freedom and stricture as they contemplate the way we hold one another in love and grief. Requeening is a vivid and surprising collection of poems from a winner of the National Poetry Series Open Competition.
112 pages, Paperback
First published October 26, 2021
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1891 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Moore
1 book19 followersAmanda Moore's debut collection of poetry, Requeening, was chosen by Ocean Vuong as part of the 2020 National Poetry Series and will be published by HarperCollins/Ecco in October 2021. She is a poet, essayist, editor, and educator who lives by the beach in the Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco with her husband and daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
April 2, 2023
maybe one day i will find the right words to capture the majesty, honesty, and pain of this collection. “while killing ants,” “requeening,” and “confession” will live in my bones now, but the section from “diagnosis” to “everything is a sign today” caught me with such specific grief it almost felt like amanda moore was writing directly to me. how could she capture, so perfectly, the exact feelings and loss i experiences living through my sisters slow passing in the hospital? “I want to sketch the oval shape of her mouth/as it rasps her last air I say “Open your eyes”/and she sticks out her tongue/maybe it’s a joke.” how did she know?
August 3, 2021
The speaker of Amanda Moore’s collection is fully realized and unflinchingly honest: a woman who, in meditating on the natural world, motherhood, and mortality, embodies our raptures, griefs, and frailties. The collection’s first poem, “Opening the Hive” is a particularly fine introduction to themes its speaker will explore, as it concludes “Like late afternoon sunlight, a kiss/on my dented forehead, mother collapsed and emptied// of poison, barbed stinger, and the baby, the jelly, the bee.” In varied forms including sonnet and haibun, poems in Requeening celebrate life’s richness and depth, the poet’s skill everywhere in evidence. Don’t miss reading this wonderful collection!
September 8, 2021
Thank you to Ecco Books, Amanda Moore, and NetGalley for this eARC copy of REQUEENING (Pub date: 10/26/21)
The poems in REQUEENING center themselves around motherhood, women’s roles, illness, death, grief and more. These themes often weave themselves around bee metaphors in the poetry.
As it is with most poetry books, there were some poems that I was more drawn to than others in this collection. My favorite was the poem BAD AT BEES, where the author relates an artist who puts broken figurines into bee hives to her own life. I did find some of the other poems to be confusing, and it was difficult for me to tell if the order of the poems was supposed to reflect a linear timeline or a singular story. I never understood what was happening in a narrative sense (which I’m not sure if that was intended by the author or not).
However, the writing is so thoughtful and beautiful on each of these poems, and I think that they could be relatable to many. There are many trigger warnings though, notably: death, chronic illness, grief, struggles in motherhood.
The poems in REQUEENING center themselves around motherhood, women’s roles, illness, death, grief and more. These themes often weave themselves around bee metaphors in the poetry.
As it is with most poetry books, there were some poems that I was more drawn to than others in this collection. My favorite was the poem BAD AT BEES, where the author relates an artist who puts broken figurines into bee hives to her own life. I did find some of the other poems to be confusing, and it was difficult for me to tell if the order of the poems was supposed to reflect a linear timeline or a singular story. I never understood what was happening in a narrative sense (which I’m not sure if that was intended by the author or not).
However, the writing is so thoughtful and beautiful on each of these poems, and I think that they could be relatable to many. There are many trigger warnings though, notably: death, chronic illness, grief, struggles in motherhood.
April 19, 2024
Quick dnf here. Decided I need to better about that because I have fallen off my strong dnf wagon. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Classic situation where I don't think it's a bad collection or bad poetry writing, it's just not doing anything for me. I keep on hopping back in, thinking maybe I'll get that magic click but it's really not happening. And to think I found this through a booktube poetry video, thinking I have never heard of a collection that sounded more for me.... But well. Not my book, no harm done, let's move on.
Classic situation where I don't think it's a bad collection or bad poetry writing, it's just not doing anything for me. I keep on hopping back in, thinking maybe I'll get that magic click but it's really not happening. And to think I found this through a booktube poetry video, thinking I have never heard of a collection that sounded more for me.... But well. Not my book, no harm done, let's move on.
September 23, 2022
Requeening journeys beautifully into the life of the poet/speaker: places she lived in, marriage, watching her child grow from birth to teenage years, illness, a beloved's passing (my favorite sequence). If the collection were a sonata the bees would be the dazzling and multi-voiced accompaniment to the speaker's melody, making it ring with depth and breadth. They not only permeate the collection as recurring image but also as a concrete presence in their own right.
Read
August 17, 20213.5 stars
I have read much better poetry, but one specific poem sticks with me, about a real artist who places broken objects in a beehive, and takes them back out with comb in the empty spaces. It touched me, and if all of the poems made sense like that I would have rated it 4.5.
I have read much better poetry, but one specific poem sticks with me, about a real artist who places broken objects in a beehive, and takes them back out with comb in the empty spaces. It touched me, and if all of the poems made sense like that I would have rated it 4.5.
December 31, 2023
my last book of the year!!!! motherhood seems so traumatic i have to say
May 18, 2023
A great variety of poetry forms. Each one speaks to the heart and head with imagery and truth and shows other poets "the way."
October 30, 2021
Amanda Moore uses a running (though not omnipresent) metaphor of honeybees, their queen, and the hive throughout her collection of poems entitled Requeening. How one responds to the collection will depend greatly on what one looks for in their poetry.
If you like to poetry more on the “poetic” (we know it when we see it) spectrum between poetry and prose, this may not be the collection for you, as the poems are pretty prose-y. Pretty much all of them, but some more formally, as they take the structure of a haibun, a Japanese poem that combines a prose poem and a haiku. Here is a taste of the prose-heavy style:
As teenagers, you would drive Illinois/ back roads to drink beer, make out,/ and talk about the places you would travel./ All that corn might have looked like future/ to the two of you, stretching and vast and topped/ with the bit of silk you imagine life grew into.
Or
Yet I don’t despise the bike that broke his leg/and dragged us into knowing. At night/when I replay in dreams the afternoon/that flipped us both to the curb, sick wail of ambulance/ and everything that followed, I don’t always say Stop./ Don’t be a jackass ...
This isn’t to say Moore doesn’t make use of poetic tools (outside the haiku moments). She does, but they call less attention to themselves here. You still, for example, get the occasional alliterative like “husk of hive” or the consonance/alliteration of “too fat to fly” or the consonance/assonance of “mere metering are; a deception sheathed in steel.” But don’t look for a lot of rhyme or off-rhyme, or a lot of elliptical or compacted language. On the other hand, if you prefer your poetry more prose-like and more direct in its statements (not quite Billy Collins but close to that style), this would be a good choice.
Metaphor, too, obviously is employed, as Moore keeps cycling back to those bees and in particular the queen, which is appropriate given the book’s arc itself deals with a female cycle of motherhood and woman-becoming, with a central focus on the relationship between the speaker and her daughter from birth to the teen years (though other women make appear as well). Grief as well rears its inevitable head, nicely foreshadowed by earlier moments where the speaker muses on mortality. The grief is followed, eventually, by recovery, which is partly at least how we arrive at the title.
Moore has an honesty and complexity in her speaker’s views toward the relationships in her life, including motherhood, which is neither idealized nor presented as a horror show. Moments of tender love are followed (sometimes even immediately) by more fraught moments, as when the speaker wakes her tween daughter for school: “When her eyes flutter open, it is to scowl at me, but when she rides again toward the crest of sleep, she burrows toward me: her first comfort.” Always the push and the pull.
I confess I do prefer my poetry more on the other end of the spectrum, but still I managed to highlight a number of lines that struck me either for their originality of language or their particular phasing of a sentiment/idea, lines like “the nave of me replete” or “the caul of her sleep.” Meanwhile, the narrative arc and thematic threadline enhanced the reading experience, making this an easy recommendation even if it’s not exactly my preference.
If you like to poetry more on the “poetic” (we know it when we see it) spectrum between poetry and prose, this may not be the collection for you, as the poems are pretty prose-y. Pretty much all of them, but some more formally, as they take the structure of a haibun, a Japanese poem that combines a prose poem and a haiku. Here is a taste of the prose-heavy style:
As teenagers, you would drive Illinois/ back roads to drink beer, make out,/ and talk about the places you would travel./ All that corn might have looked like future/ to the two of you, stretching and vast and topped/ with the bit of silk you imagine life grew into.
Or
Yet I don’t despise the bike that broke his leg/and dragged us into knowing. At night/when I replay in dreams the afternoon/that flipped us both to the curb, sick wail of ambulance/ and everything that followed, I don’t always say Stop./ Don’t be a jackass ...
This isn’t to say Moore doesn’t make use of poetic tools (outside the haiku moments). She does, but they call less attention to themselves here. You still, for example, get the occasional alliterative like “husk of hive” or the consonance/alliteration of “too fat to fly” or the consonance/assonance of “mere metering are; a deception sheathed in steel.” But don’t look for a lot of rhyme or off-rhyme, or a lot of elliptical or compacted language. On the other hand, if you prefer your poetry more prose-like and more direct in its statements (not quite Billy Collins but close to that style), this would be a good choice.
Metaphor, too, obviously is employed, as Moore keeps cycling back to those bees and in particular the queen, which is appropriate given the book’s arc itself deals with a female cycle of motherhood and woman-becoming, with a central focus on the relationship between the speaker and her daughter from birth to the teen years (though other women make appear as well). Grief as well rears its inevitable head, nicely foreshadowed by earlier moments where the speaker muses on mortality. The grief is followed, eventually, by recovery, which is partly at least how we arrive at the title.
Moore has an honesty and complexity in her speaker’s views toward the relationships in her life, including motherhood, which is neither idealized nor presented as a horror show. Moments of tender love are followed (sometimes even immediately) by more fraught moments, as when the speaker wakes her tween daughter for school: “When her eyes flutter open, it is to scowl at me, but when she rides again toward the crest of sleep, she burrows toward me: her first comfort.” Always the push and the pull.
I confess I do prefer my poetry more on the other end of the spectrum, but still I managed to highlight a number of lines that struck me either for their originality of language or their particular phasing of a sentiment/idea, lines like “the nave of me replete” or “the caul of her sleep.” Meanwhile, the narrative arc and thematic threadline enhanced the reading experience, making this an easy recommendation even if it’s not exactly my preference.
June 12, 2021
"the sands her entry
the messy record
my grandmother keeps: a family
in objects. All the things
and none of their stories: the deeds
we did to get them, what we kept
and what we stole, this past
we’ve made from pilfered dust."
A collection that goes all the way to the horizon and down into the earth. Poems ruminating on family, ancestry, life. Moore traces the relationships of women, though birth, sickness, and death, relationships with mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and long-distant, unmet aunts.
Through long, winding poems she showcases the blood and the joys and the agonies of motherhood. I enjoyed how the poems lept around from birth to toddler to teenager, then back again to nursing. Moore expertly, with vivid, brutal details, exposes the rawness of being a mother, of practically losing your own body. She captures seemingly small moments of one's life and teases out the thoughts lurking underneath. There are hints of her love and her marriage, but this collection is mostly surrounding female relationships: it could be expressed as an ancestry of motherhood.
I enjoyed the framing of bees and honey. It reminded me of THE HONEY MONTH but with an earthier, more in-this-world feel.
"I hate how I sound when I say things like “Yeah, I keep bees in my backyard,”or “Yeah, I surf most mornings,”“Yeah, I’m a poet,”as if I’m any good at any of it. I don’t really know what I’m doing most days. I just like to touch fear."
the messy record
my grandmother keeps: a family
in objects. All the things
and none of their stories: the deeds
we did to get them, what we kept
and what we stole, this past
we’ve made from pilfered dust."
A collection that goes all the way to the horizon and down into the earth. Poems ruminating on family, ancestry, life. Moore traces the relationships of women, though birth, sickness, and death, relationships with mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and long-distant, unmet aunts.
Through long, winding poems she showcases the blood and the joys and the agonies of motherhood. I enjoyed how the poems lept around from birth to toddler to teenager, then back again to nursing. Moore expertly, with vivid, brutal details, exposes the rawness of being a mother, of practically losing your own body. She captures seemingly small moments of one's life and teases out the thoughts lurking underneath. There are hints of her love and her marriage, but this collection is mostly surrounding female relationships: it could be expressed as an ancestry of motherhood.
I enjoyed the framing of bees and honey. It reminded me of THE HONEY MONTH but with an earthier, more in-this-world feel.
"I hate how I sound when I say things like “Yeah, I keep bees in my backyard,”or “Yeah, I surf most mornings,”“Yeah, I’m a poet,”as if I’m any good at any of it. I don’t really know what I’m doing most days. I just like to touch fear."
May 25, 2021
Requeening by Amanda Moore is an amazingly vivid collection that explores the various roles a woman might play through their life. With a unique poetic writing style and colorful imagery, Requeening was a delight to read.
While not all poems were about bees specifically, you could see how the author perfectly intertwined womanhood with the structure of a beehive. Moore has a very classical poetic style, essay like and lyrical, leading to a mixture of long (sometimes hard-to-catch) poems and shorter, hard-hitting ones.
A few times, I had trouble catching the meanings of poems, but poetry is very subjective so I don’t doubt that others would have had a much easier time. I still enjoyed this read very much.
A section of the poems ended in what I believe to be (but could be wrong about) haikus, which was very interesting and definitely not in the norm. I had never read a Haibun until this collection came along. It was interesting to see a bunch of poetic styles I, a poetry reader, had never once heard of, and it made the collection all the more entertaining.
That last poem specifically hit me hard.
I think this was a nice, classical-vibes collection that will definitely suit the poetry market.
While not all poems were about bees specifically, you could see how the author perfectly intertwined womanhood with the structure of a beehive. Moore has a very classical poetic style, essay like and lyrical, leading to a mixture of long (sometimes hard-to-catch) poems and shorter, hard-hitting ones.
A few times, I had trouble catching the meanings of poems, but poetry is very subjective so I don’t doubt that others would have had a much easier time. I still enjoyed this read very much.
A section of the poems ended in what I believe to be (but could be wrong about) haikus, which was very interesting and definitely not in the norm. I had never read a Haibun until this collection came along. It was interesting to see a bunch of poetic styles I, a poetry reader, had never once heard of, and it made the collection all the more entertaining.
That last poem specifically hit me hard.
I think this was a nice, classical-vibes collection that will definitely suit the poetry market.
May 19, 2021
I picked up this book because of the bee cover & title. Unsurprisingly, the bee poems were my favorite. They were complex and interesting. The rest of the book was a bit disappointing. While Moore's craft is evident, I just didn't find many of the poems interesting and kept putting the book down. As a cancer survivor, I expected to love the poems about chemo/survival, but I just didn't find them having an interesting perspective.
The themes of this collection are incredibly interesting: the cycle of life, growing, dying. I truly wish the bees were a stronger motif. Also, I realize I'm probably not the ideal audience for this collection; the motherhood poems fell flat for me.
thanks to netgalley for the arc
The themes of this collection are incredibly interesting: the cycle of life, growing, dying. I truly wish the bees were a stronger motif. Also, I realize I'm probably not the ideal audience for this collection; the motherhood poems fell flat for me.
thanks to netgalley for the arc
May 11, 2021
A stunningly beautiful collection of poems on the body, parenthood, and bees. I loved these poems--they are carefully created, not a word out of place, and full of emotion and grace. The order of the poems, their forms, and the images and ideas they capture within those boundaries results in a collection I'd recommend to any reader.
September 19, 2021
Magical. Vivid, precise language and description convey emotional truths that are nuanced, unpredictable, and weighty. There's gravitas as well as playfulness in the daring and varied choices the poet makes. Loved it.
November 10, 2024
While the starting the first part, and realising the symbolism of bees was repeated over & over, I thought that would be the worst part of the book- as it's much more gratifying to read an extended metaphor when it isn’t evoked every three lines. However, I was in for a pleasant surprise for the detailed symbolism went hand in hand with her story.
There's always this issue when someone decides to chronicle all important events in their lives and dedicate poetry to it- it's almost impossible to allow every aspect the same grace and depth. This made this collection, not just structurally different, but also emotionally abrupt. There's love, There's growing up, there's nostalgia, there's bitterness (there is everything but patience), but none of the emotions seemed fleshed out. After every section I felt like I couldn’t have read more than 5 poems about it, but it turned out there were quite many dedicated to the event and yet it fell short.
Everytime she’s the daughter in the relationship, because she’s now an adult, I think, she has written her mother with so much love and compassion. Unfortunately, I think her mother’s death might contribute to this warmer perception, because she doesn’t extend the same grace to her daughter.
While she wrote about her toddler daughter, it felt more like she had the emotional range of a child. This tone becomes unbearable as her daughter becomes a teen, as she writes about her daughter doing the typical white teen things, but to me, the mother seemed just as emotionally erratic & frustrated as a child who is just growing up and grappling with unbearable peer pressure.
The prose parts of her Haibuns pissed me off for this very reason. The haiku parts, although, were good.
I'm not going to expand much about the poems about her lover turned husband as they weren't much important to me, however I do appreciate all the odes to Emily Dickinson in the first two parts of this book. Unfortunately, no breaking rules of poetry seems inventive enough to someone who has spend a lot of time trying to absorb Ms. Dickinson's poetry.
The parts about her illness and her mother’s death were written beautifully, however these two events, one after the other, at the ending of this book seemed to suggest a desperate necessity for closure, so that the author could heal and live again, this time with more love, more patience. And that, to me, seemed disingenuous. It seemed like she was rushing through- sacrificing symbolism for observation, giving up all other emotions for a final relief so that she could end the book on a more hopeful note and find relief. And while her writing this book could very much be about it- closure, relief, choosing the act of living to leave a legacy of love behind yourself and every person you have loved, but it could also just be a typical marketing tactic of how you always can find strength again. It would be extremely tacky if the book ended at the second last poem, I am glad she wrote the last one- Bad at Bees, because it was beautiful. Yes the ending of this too, felt like, sad girl who has been trying to heal finally conquered her fears and went on a world tour to hike core, but it was a good ending.
There's always this issue when someone decides to chronicle all important events in their lives and dedicate poetry to it- it's almost impossible to allow every aspect the same grace and depth. This made this collection, not just structurally different, but also emotionally abrupt. There's love, There's growing up, there's nostalgia, there's bitterness (there is everything but patience), but none of the emotions seemed fleshed out. After every section I felt like I couldn’t have read more than 5 poems about it, but it turned out there were quite many dedicated to the event and yet it fell short.
Everytime she’s the daughter in the relationship, because she’s now an adult, I think, she has written her mother with so much love and compassion. Unfortunately, I think her mother’s death might contribute to this warmer perception, because she doesn’t extend the same grace to her daughter.
While she wrote about her toddler daughter, it felt more like she had the emotional range of a child. This tone becomes unbearable as her daughter becomes a teen, as she writes about her daughter doing the typical white teen things, but to me, the mother seemed just as emotionally erratic & frustrated as a child who is just growing up and grappling with unbearable peer pressure.
The prose parts of her Haibuns pissed me off for this very reason. The haiku parts, although, were good.
I'm not going to expand much about the poems about her lover turned husband as they weren't much important to me, however I do appreciate all the odes to Emily Dickinson in the first two parts of this book. Unfortunately, no breaking rules of poetry seems inventive enough to someone who has spend a lot of time trying to absorb Ms. Dickinson's poetry.
The parts about her illness and her mother’s death were written beautifully, however these two events, one after the other, at the ending of this book seemed to suggest a desperate necessity for closure, so that the author could heal and live again, this time with more love, more patience. And that, to me, seemed disingenuous. It seemed like she was rushing through- sacrificing symbolism for observation, giving up all other emotions for a final relief so that she could end the book on a more hopeful note and find relief. And while her writing this book could very much be about it- closure, relief, choosing the act of living to leave a legacy of love behind yourself and every person you have loved, but it could also just be a typical marketing tactic of how you always can find strength again. It would be extremely tacky if the book ended at the second last poem, I am glad she wrote the last one- Bad at Bees, because it was beautiful. Yes the ending of this too, felt like, sad girl who has been trying to heal finally conquered her fears and went on a world tour to hike core, but it was a good ending.
June 27, 2021
actual rating: 2.5 stars rounded up, perfectly average reading experience
I'd like to thank NetGalley, Amanda Moore, and Ecco (the publisher) for allowing me to have an advanced reader's copy in digital format for this book in exchange for an honest review.
Wow. This was a rollercoaster, to say the least. Amanda Moore covers topics such as loss, hospitalization, stress & anxiety, and many, many bug facts throughout this collection of poems. This journey through life as expressed through her work is unique and established over and over again through the selections you read.
I'd like to say before beginning to break down my rating that upon finishing this, I'm not sure if I was the target audience for this work as someone who is about to enter their third year of undergrad. Reviews are biased pieces of work. Please take my review with a grain of salt, or even two, as some of the things discussed in this book very much did not align with my life experiences so far.
+1: bug facts; if nothing else, the first ~half of this book does have some really cool bug facts, very likely as allegories for Moore's life or lives Moore has observed.
-1: breakdown/structure; I did read this in a digital format, so I'm sure the structure of the actual poems will make much more sense once this is printed, but I really wasn't a fan of the overall sectioning and breakdown of the poems to begin with. I don't know what necessarily was wrong with it, it just wasn't to my taste.
+1: short and sweet (mostly); most of the poems provided in this work were no longer than about a page, which is always nice when reading poetry.
-1.5: stakler-y vibes?; I don't know how to explain this, but the poems when mentioning a child gave me very much stalker/helicopter parent/don't grow up yet vibes and I was really not about that. I don't have much explanation beyond that other than those poems gave me bad vibes. Like, I would have to stop reading for the day after reaching one of those poems bad vibes.
+1: arc; I'm glad I received this as an arc, because I likely wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. Broadening horizons is always a good thing :)
+1: use of literary devices; my creative writing professors would love this book, if not for it's slightly out-there content (in relevance to my life and experiences as a 19 year old) then for Moore's use of almost every poetic literary device in the book. I can almost guarantee that some of these will be used by professors in advanced poetry courses at different universities.
I'd like to thank NetGalley, Amanda Moore, and Ecco (the publisher) for allowing me to have an advanced reader's copy in digital format for this book in exchange for an honest review.
Wow. This was a rollercoaster, to say the least. Amanda Moore covers topics such as loss, hospitalization, stress & anxiety, and many, many bug facts throughout this collection of poems. This journey through life as expressed through her work is unique and established over and over again through the selections you read.
I'd like to say before beginning to break down my rating that upon finishing this, I'm not sure if I was the target audience for this work as someone who is about to enter their third year of undergrad. Reviews are biased pieces of work. Please take my review with a grain of salt, or even two, as some of the things discussed in this book very much did not align with my life experiences so far.
+1: bug facts; if nothing else, the first ~half of this book does have some really cool bug facts, very likely as allegories for Moore's life or lives Moore has observed.
-1: breakdown/structure; I did read this in a digital format, so I'm sure the structure of the actual poems will make much more sense once this is printed, but I really wasn't a fan of the overall sectioning and breakdown of the poems to begin with. I don't know what necessarily was wrong with it, it just wasn't to my taste.
+1: short and sweet (mostly); most of the poems provided in this work were no longer than about a page, which is always nice when reading poetry.
-1.5: stakler-y vibes?; I don't know how to explain this, but the poems when mentioning a child gave me very much stalker/helicopter parent/don't grow up yet vibes and I was really not about that. I don't have much explanation beyond that other than those poems gave me bad vibes. Like, I would have to stop reading for the day after reaching one of those poems bad vibes.
+1: arc; I'm glad I received this as an arc, because I likely wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. Broadening horizons is always a good thing :)
+1: use of literary devices; my creative writing professors would love this book, if not for it's slightly out-there content (in relevance to my life and experiences as a 19 year old) then for Moore's use of almost every poetic literary device in the book. I can almost guarantee that some of these will be used by professors in advanced poetry courses at different universities.
May 19, 2021
I was reminded again while reading this that poetry is so subjective! Every reader will take something different from this collection, which is probably my favorite thing about poetry--it’s both universal and personal!
I personally found this to be a collection of poems that says what it means. Though these selections are lyrical and evocative, I didn’t detect much metaphor or hidden meaning throughout. I didn’t spend a minute or two after reading the majority of these to think about what might have *actually* been said because I felt it was already explained. These read almost like small snippets of stories or essays, all set on conveying events as they happened through a lens of beauty & emotion.
I enjoyed reading Moore’s creative thoughts on various stages of womanhood, her snapshots of marriage and motherhood, her take on sickness and loss, and the importance of leaning into the changes we inevitably face as life continues moving forward.
Thank you, NetGalley & Ecco Books, for the ARC!
I personally found this to be a collection of poems that says what it means. Though these selections are lyrical and evocative, I didn’t detect much metaphor or hidden meaning throughout. I didn’t spend a minute or two after reading the majority of these to think about what might have *actually* been said because I felt it was already explained. These read almost like small snippets of stories or essays, all set on conveying events as they happened through a lens of beauty & emotion.
I enjoyed reading Moore’s creative thoughts on various stages of womanhood, her snapshots of marriage and motherhood, her take on sickness and loss, and the importance of leaning into the changes we inevitably face as life continues moving forward.
Thank you, NetGalley & Ecco Books, for the ARC!
September 25, 2021
Fair knowledge: I received an uncorrected proof of Requeening: Poems by Amanda Moore in a Goodreads giveaway.
Amanda Moore takes the theme of beekeeping and weaves it into poems about a woman's life. I particularly like her poems about the relationship of a mother and daughter. There are also a number of poems about cancer and dying which affected me profoundly because my own mother died from cancer and because I had my own battle with breast cancer a number of years ago. Thanking God for healing me! Unconnected to either of those themes, the poem, "Sonnet While Killing a Chicken," made be both smile and grimace.
I have read many types of books including poetry, but one word was new to me: Haibun. I had to look it up. "The haibun is the combination of two poems: a prose poem and haiku. The form was popularized by the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho." (Source: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-b...)
Amanda Moore takes the theme of beekeeping and weaves it into poems about a woman's life. I particularly like her poems about the relationship of a mother and daughter. There are also a number of poems about cancer and dying which affected me profoundly because my own mother died from cancer and because I had my own battle with breast cancer a number of years ago. Thanking God for healing me! Unconnected to either of those themes, the poem, "Sonnet While Killing a Chicken," made be both smile and grimace.
I have read many types of books including poetry, but one word was new to me: Haibun. I had to look it up. "The haibun is the combination of two poems: a prose poem and haiku. The form was popularized by the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho." (Source: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-b...)
July 10, 2021
This is an interesting collection of poetry, in various styles/formats, that portrays the cycle/path of a woman's life, struggles, illnesses, death, birthing, children, care giving, friendship.....sort of in relation to, or highlighted by a beehive's life. Poetry can be hard for me to appreciate sometimes, & I found the first few poems a bit challenging to see where this was going, but I found my way fairly quickly....& it all laid out in a direction that I could follow & understand, & came to appreciate.....& in that, I think the author does really well! Yes.....I appreciated her view, the light she cast, on this look at life. I bet most women would find something to relate to or appreciate in these poems.
I received an e-ARC from publisher Ecco/Harper Collins, via NetGalley, after offering to read it & post my own fair & honest review.
I received an e-ARC from publisher Ecco/Harper Collins, via NetGalley, after offering to read it & post my own fair & honest review.
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December 23, 2022This National Poetry Series winning collection is by a poet and mother and surfer and high school English teacher who also keeps bees. I think it was the poet Elizabeth Bishop who said, “A metaphor should touch in at least three places, and two of them have to be in the real world.” Amanda Moore’s book is proof of this rule at work. The book is filled with the stuff of Moore’s real world and our own and yet, over and over, Requeening transforms everyday experiences by touching one against others. These are poems like honeycomb built around introduced objects: somehow both fragile and sturdy.
Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2022/01/new...
Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2022/01/new...
July 23, 2023
I was very excited about this collection, given how much I love bees and the subject of motherhood, but Moore's style never quite worked for me. I did enjoy the second half of the collection a lot more than the first, but there was never anything that really stuck with me. I think the narration for the audiobook version was also somewhat flat, which made it harder to connect with the emotions at play. But I'm not entirely convinced it would have worked better for me in written form, as without that rhythm, I might have not been able to get into it at all.
Still, the back half does have some lovely lines about motherhood and Moore's relationship with her daughter. I just don't think she's a poet for me.
Still, the back half does have some lovely lines about motherhood and Moore's relationship with her daughter. I just don't think she's a poet for me.
May 18, 2021
This collection is geared more toward people who I imagine like Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost - those classic kinds of poetry that are meant to be on paper. Compare that to the styles of slam or spoken word poetry, which reads on paper like it's meant to be said aloud. I don't enjoy poetry that leans to much toward prose, as if it's telling me a story that happens to be labeled as a poem - there's something about it feeling like an essay or journal entry that doesn't vibe with me. That said, poetry is subjective and these poems were eloquent and fit the theme described. Not my cup of tea, but you might like them if your tastes differ.
April 29, 2022
REQUEENING, a poetry collection that centers on the roles of women, takes an interesting look at womanhood by tying together the structure of a beehive and what happens when a hive must adjust to a new Queen. I thought this collection was quite different from other works I’ve read that touches on similar topics and there were several poems that really resonated with me.
I thought the most powerful poems were the ones centered on a woman’s role as a mother and the difficult dynamics women experience with their daughters as they grow up. I also found Moore’s poems where she discussed her cancer diagnosis to also be incredibly powerful.
All together this collection was really special to read. There were a few poems early on that did not resonate as much with me, but I thought the second half was really well done.
I thought the most powerful poems were the ones centered on a woman’s role as a mother and the difficult dynamics women experience with their daughters as they grow up. I also found Moore’s poems where she discussed her cancer diagnosis to also be incredibly powerful.
All together this collection was really special to read. There were a few poems early on that did not resonate as much with me, but I thought the second half was really well done.
November 5, 2022
The hour of possibility
a house where I want to live…
This is simply one of the most probing books of poetry I’ve read. So beautiful. Its theme on bees and hives and queens touches on the deep connection between mother and daughter, a rich and painful record of a relationship scored by the most commonplace rhythms of our everyday home life. I recognize the travails and triumphs as those of my wife and daughter, and therefore my own, too. I will write more later, but I wanted to respond with the full heart I feel in the journey that Amanda Moore took me on.
a house where I want to live…
This is simply one of the most probing books of poetry I’ve read. So beautiful. Its theme on bees and hives and queens touches on the deep connection between mother and daughter, a rich and painful record of a relationship scored by the most commonplace rhythms of our everyday home life. I recognize the travails and triumphs as those of my wife and daughter, and therefore my own, too. I will write more later, but I wanted to respond with the full heart I feel in the journey that Amanda Moore took me on.
April 28, 2021
The main reason why I picked up this book, is because I love bees, and the tittle and cover peaked my interest.
Poetry is very subjective. You either will like and/or understand the poems, or you will not.
I did not fully understand the meaning of all the poems, but I did enjoy most of them. They had something very lyrical, which I enjoyed a lot.
This collection won’t be for everyone but I’d still recommend to give it a try.
I got a free eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Poetry is very subjective. You either will like and/or understand the poems, or you will not.
I did not fully understand the meaning of all the poems, but I did enjoy most of them. They had something very lyrical, which I enjoyed a lot.
This collection won’t be for everyone but I’d still recommend to give it a try.
I got a free eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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March 24, 2022Particularly resonant with women readers, perhaps, a book that examines the various roles of a woman throughout her life with attention, interest, and vivid and frank imagery. With the metaphor of a hive collapse and the rehoming of its queen at the heart of this collection, structures--both physical and emotional--become a central preoccupation throughout, with sometimes surprising and even astonishing results at the line and word level. Some really memorable poetry in this little volume.
May 29, 2022
Very moving. Moore’s shift from shorter lines to full paragraphs is intriguing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the collection.
Favorite lines:
“I don’t really know what I’m doing most days. I just like to touch fear.”
“All of the things/and none of the stories: the deeds/we did to get them, what we kept/and what we stole, this past/we’ve made from pilfered dust.”
“We are not a people/of songs and stories”
Favorite lines:
“I don’t really know what I’m doing most days. I just like to touch fear.”
“All of the things/and none of the stories: the deeds/we did to get them, what we kept/and what we stole, this past/we’ve made from pilfered dust.”
“We are not a people/of songs and stories”
September 29, 2021
Really happy to have been given an introduction to Amanda Moore’s writing through “Requeening”. She talks about some difficult topics (loss of a loved one, her child growing up, cancer) with a lot of honesty.
I connected most to her long pieces about her daughter; I find her longer works, those included, shined more than the rest of the book.
3 Stars
I connected most to her long pieces about her daughter; I find her longer works, those included, shined more than the rest of the book.
3 Stars
January 6, 2022
I enjoyed this book! It is one of the more straightforward collections of poetry out there, the language clean and precise, heartfelt and insightful. A book I would quickly recommend to non-poets, to people interested in poetry about motherhood, daughterhood, marriage, about growing old and sick and recovering or not. About bees, yes, though tangentially. A lovely read.
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