Bees, and After

John Liles is a poet, science writer, and living mammal. His chapbook Following the dog down was the recipient of the Omnidawn Chapbook Prize. He lives in Fort Bragg, CA. Rae Armantrout is the award-winning author of eighteen books of poetry, most recently Finalists, Conjure, and Wobble.

“[Liles] is especially attuned to the small, the things we take for granted or don’t notice at all. . . . [His] speculative precision is where science meets art.”—Rae Armantrout, from the Foreword“For John Liles, matter’s ecstatic. With precise science and sprung rhythm, his poems render ecological intimacies legible and audible. Biotic or abiotic, everything here sings, from cell down to particle.”—Brian Teare, author of Poem Bitten by a Man“Reading this is like looking into a microscope: everything small is consequential, and almost unrecognizable. A book full of scientific terms shouldn’t be able to grab you by the emotions, but it does.”—Matthew Rohrer, author of Army of Giants“This is a dual work, both prism and portal, where the specific Real and the honed, carefully tuned language—sonic, micro- and macroscopic—conjoin, crystallizing into delicate forms on Liles’s rarefied page.”—Cody-Rose Clevidence, author of Listen My Friend, This Is the Dream I Dreamed Last Night