The new book Listening to the Bees is a unique collaboration between poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar and renowned biologist and bee expert Mark Winston. Through the distinct but complementary lenses of science and poetry, Winston and Saklikar reflect on the tension of being an individual living in a society and about the devastation wrought by overly intensive management of agricultural and urban habitats. In a conversation with Vancouver poet Rachel Rose, the authors discuss ways both science and poetry can change how humans perceive our interactions with the natural world.

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Rachel: Each of you has been, in your own way, bee-blessed—Mark as a young scholar, Renee at birth, when your grandparents anointed your forehead with honey. Your approaches, as scientist and poet, are radically different. How has this collaboration changed you?

Mark: I think “shifted” would be the operative word, more than “changed.” There’s a different emphasis in my thinking now, more focused on expanding the idea of being a scientist back in time, to the days when scientists were called natural philosophers. Science itself is an important way to look at the world, but perhaps is at its richest when embedded in broader ways of thinking. Poetry, and particularly Renee’s work, encourages breaking down the silos.

Renée Sarojini: I love this word, “shift” implying for me, one step, maybe two, either to the side, of a movement, up and back, maybe also forward; with the added connotation of labour, even strife; or, a subtle change, occurring both in an instance and over time’s arc: yeah, like that.

Mark generously gave me access to the archive of his science, papers from science journals published over forty years. As I held each document in my hands, the shape and feel of old paper, of form and method, data, the weight and feel of a language so foreign to me, words I not only didn’t recognize but could not pronounce (a not uncommon experience for me, actually, even though English is my ‘first language’): all these sensations lead me deeper into a state of not-knowing, that as a poet, always feels like a threshold. Exciting: to enter into another language. And then, over the two years spent in that Bee Science Archive and in discussion with Mark and his colleagues and with beekeepers, to see the patient care with which they take care of bees; the rigor of their methodology: certainly those experiences helped open me to a new way of seeing.

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   We each throw out ideas, try them out in pilot projects, see if they’re supported by the results, and if not, reject the hypothesis, learn from the negative results, and move on to another hypothesis. We also share a precision and rigour around our crafts, a compulsion to get it right.  

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Rachel: Mark, your work with bees has led you to uncomfortable jungle situations. You’ve been stung by killer bees and pelted by snakes and mangoes, but your work has also lead to great recognition (and the cover of Rolling Stone!) Renee, as a poet with a legal background, you have investigated terrorist attacks that have personally harmed you and your family, attacks that you felt compelled to address in poetry. Each of you pursued academic studies, law for Renee, and science for Mark—and each of you has been called to use those studies in your writing, both in this book and in others (I am thinking of Renee’s Children of Air India and of Mark’s Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive). How has having a foot in more than one discipline changed the way you write?

Mark: I don’t know that it’s changed the way I write as much as changed the way I think. Science-thought has very rigid guidelines around it, and I don’t mean that as a critique; rigorous hypothesis posing and testing, followed by constrained analysis, has been the cornerstone of the understandings that science has brought us. It’s very much like following a religion with particular practices; the constraints of practice often lead to safe exploration.

But by crossing disciplines, I’ve been grateful to see in different ways, which has led to that particular richness that comes from viewing and pondering from diverse perspectives. That diversity of thinking has led me to words that I might not have used as a scientist, to emotion that would not have been present in my scientific papers, to topics outside the usual realm of science but rich in allowing an interchange between the rational and the emotional mindsets.

Renée Sarojini: The language and rhetorical devices of the professions, codes and subtexts, narrative constructions, these fascinate the poet in me: more scope to play! I wonder if having read law papers, and now science papers, I approach language much more as material, like a potter at the wheel, with a lump of clay; rather than an instrument handed to me, fait accompli. Janus-like, ‘shifting’ perhaps law-poetics gives me a bit more sense of the possibilities of language. In law school, I would sometimes get into trouble for using a “too subjective” voice and in poetry, the first person confessional, is something I try and veer away from…

Rachel: Nature versus nurture, the colony versus the individual—do you draw political lessons or inspiration (metaphorical? spiritual? practical?) from the hive? I am thinking of the excellent book I read recently, Against Empathy, by Paul Bloom, which challenges us to create policy that serves the greater good. How do we, as ego-centric humans, do what comes to bees so much more readily, and alter our behavior for the common good? How do you take inspiration (bee-spiration?) from their societies?

Mark: There are three words in my previous book, Bee Time, that sum it up: “solitary becomes communal.” Honeybees are individuals, but most of their behaviours are pitched for the common good. I think that’s the main inspiration I’ve taken from bees: we are at our best when we are thinking of others and working towards the common good.

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   I think the words just kind of Ouija-board formed themselves into a kind of magnetic trance in my mind, and then when I woke up out of it, as if the bees themselves were dictating to me, I see that the dense repetition of the names of flowers juxtaposed with Shell Oil chemicals.  

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Rachel: Renee, can you talk about the form you chose for some of your poems, like “Hollow Wax,” or the exquisite “An Adaptation for Foraging,” and how perfectly (to my mind) form informs content in such poems?

Renée Sarojini: Thrilled to be asked: the forms chose themselves. I’d spend sometimes hours playing with combinations of words culled from Mark’s science papers. One thing about bees, among the many that absorb my attention, is the way numeric patterns arise in the study of bee-life: for example, the number six (hexagon) and its derivatives or “associations” if I can put it that way: three’s and two’s and eight’s. For instance the waggle dance of bees, which I believe (Mark can correct me!) gestures toward the figure 8 (infinity sign); and the way that the fragment is often prevalent, as in the breaking of parts of the comb, to harvest honey. And another thing is the way bees invite us to be fully present with our senses: smell, touch, taste, and sound. As a poet, I’m obsessed with sound.

So, as I began to observe and delight in these things, quite early on in my collaboration with Mark, I realized I wanted to really work with his science archive, in a way that merged sound and pattern, and playing around with those, as I spent time with Mark , his beekeeper friends, certain formal poetic structures would emerge: and I played around with words in those formal poetic patterns.

In “Hollow Wax, I think that’s a villanelle with nineteen lines, five stanzas, three lines each and a quatrain, four lines. Each stanza in a particular pattern. Now, although there’s lots of “slant” rhyme inside the lines, they don’t end in rhymed endings which to my ear would sound too “pat” but I did play with keeping to the form’s “rule” of two rhymes throughout, so we get the words, “ years” and ”wax” repeated. Yikes. Guess that was a geek moment. Now that I look at the poem again, I sense that the repetition sort of keys into a sense I had/still have: of the immensity of what bees do, just being bees, and how close we are to losing that.

“An Adaptation for Foraging”: this is our friend the sestina, a form I love for its dense forest of repetition and — geek-alert — chiasmus. Bees seem to me rather brilliant mathematicians and there’s so much wonderful math-patterning in form poetry. Again, I think the words just kind of Ouija-board formed themselves into a kind of magnetic trance in my mind, and then when I woke up out of it, as if the bees themselves were dictating to me, I see that the dense repetition of the names of flowers juxtaposed with Shell Oil chemicals, creates this tension between the pastoral and the agro-chemical. In both poems, the source text is from Mark’s science archive.

Rachel: Mark, you write, “Science with its reliance on data and objectivity may seem the least poetic of professions, but scientists and poets have at least one thing in common: we share a love of words and exploration.” What else might poets and scientists share?

Mark: Hypothesis testing, perhaps? We each throw out ideas, try them out in pilot projects, see if they’re supported by the results, and if not, reject the hypothesis, learn from the negative results, and move on to another hypothesis. We also share a precision and rigour around our crafts, a compulsion to get it right.

Rachel: In “Apples and Honey,” Mark, you write: “…it’s through the cross-fertilization of ideas and talents that we best express our communal selves.” Mark, you later write, “That’s the conundrum of science: we feel that we need to separate data from emotion, yet factual analysis and spiritual understandings are both integral elements of the human experience.” What possibilities do you see for spiritually-intelligent, poetry-infused science and scientifically-invigorated, investigative poetry?

Mark: Spiritual and scientific intelligence are not mutually exclusive, but too often are separated in how they are taught and practiced. But not always; I’m encouraged by individuals like the Dalai Lama who have deep spiritual practices but also engage with and celebrate science. Heart and mind, he and his followers say, and if conventional Western education would embrace that concept, the possibilities would be exciting. My pet project, so far unrealized, is to have all Masters and PhD students defend their theses and dissertations in two ways, first the traditional power point academic talk they currently are expected to do, but then present the same material with an arts-based practice: poetry, music, dance, theatre . . . powerful, that would be.

Rachel: What are you each currently curious about?

Renée Sarojini: Pretty much everything. That’s why the Age of the Inner-Net is so lethal for my ability to concentrate. And I think that’s one of the sources of learning and joy in hanging around Mark and his bee-world. The patience and powers of observation that bee scientists bring to their work: humbling. To be attentive enough to the world around us, to the lives and habits of bees: somehow the act of doing that, of learning the names of things, flowers and trees, other insects, for me, that’s deepened my willingness to be still and open enough to let curiosity inside the daze of busy everyday “on-line” life. This collaboration has fine-tuned my sense of observation as witness; that scientists, and beekeepers, and poets, we’re witnesses to this marvel…the life of bees.

Mark: Diversity, and are there common threads that unite the benefits of diversity in biological, business, government and civic affairs? Is diversity “better,” more effective, and if so why? That’s where my current thinking is headed.

Rachel: I learned so much from this book, and from your collaboration—about how bees are shipped, about how bees were introduced to North America, about bee behavior and young scientist behavior. I alternated between despondent and hopeful as I read your collaboration, and learned of the threats facing bees, facing all of us. At these times of stark loss, Renee, your poetry provides beautiful consolation. When you write:

…into the bee yard
you brought me—and so we whispered let the song reside in us forever

I felt that the song might, perhaps, endure. So, after reading your book, where might a well-meaning but novice bee-lover buy honey in the Northwest? And how can we support bees? And is our optimism misplaced?

Mark: At the “what can I do” level, it’s simple: don’t mow your lawn while dandelion or clover are in bloom, don’t use pesticides, and do plant bee-friendly plants in your yard, garden, and even apartment balcony. All of those are good for the wild bees as well as managed honeybees.

At the consumer level, I suggest buying organic if you can afford it, or look for “sustainable” levels. Ask your grocer to begin sourcing “pollinator-friendly” labels as well. Finally, vote. The quality of food and the way it’s produced is rarely an election issue, yet is central to our well-being and that of our planet. Grill candidates on their positions on pesticide regulation, sustainable farming and pollinator protection, and enhancement of wild bee diversity and abundance. Let them know their answers will be important in deciding who you’re going to vote for.

Oh, and buy local honey, and get to know your local beekeeper.

Rachel: What is the question you each wish I had asked?

Renée Sarojini: Each question from you is a gift and teaches me about the work, about what’s been given. Gratitude.

Mark: The question I hoped you would ask: “When can we get together for coffee!”

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Photo credit: Simon Fraser University.

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey, British Columbia. Her book, Listening to the Bees (Nightwood Editons, 2018) is a book of essays and bee poems in collaboration with Mark Winston. Trained as a lawyer and with a degree in English Literature, Renée currently teaches creative writing at Simon Fraser University and Vancouver Community College. 

Renée’s first book, Children of Air India, (Nightwood Editions, 2013) won the 2014 Canadian Authors Association Award for poetry and was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Renée co-edited The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them (Anvil Press/SFU Public Square, 2015) with Wayde Compton, a finalist for a 2016 City of Vancouver Book Award. Renée is currently working on an epic sci-fi journey poem, THOT-J-BAP, that has been published in part in literary journals and chapbooks.

Mark L. Winston is the recipient of the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction for his book Bee Time: Lessons From the Hive. One of the world’s leading experts on bees and pollination, Mark is also an internationally recognized researcher, teacher, and writer. He directed Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue for 12 years, where he founded the Centre’s Semester in Dialogue, a program that creates leadership development opportunities that equip and empower students contribute to social change in communities.

He currently is a Professor and Senior Fellow in Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue, and a Professor of Biological Sciences.

Rachel Rose was the Poet Laureate of Vancouver (2014-2018) , is the editor of Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food (Anvil Press) and the author of The Dog Lover Unit: Lessons in Courage from the World’s K9 Cops (shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis award for best non-fiction crime book). Recent work has appeared in publications such as The Globe & Mail, The American Poetry Review, Monte Cristo Magazine, The Vancouver Sun, and The Press Democrat. She is associate editor of Cascadia Magazine.

Listening to the Bees

by Mark L Winston and Renée Sarojini Saklikar

(Nightwood Editions, $24.95 Canada)

Listening To the Bees is now available for sale in Canada, and will be available at bookstores in the United States after June 28, 2018.