Solitary Bee

In Solitary Bee, poet Chelsea Woodard uses deft language and imagery to create vivid moments. Though many of the poems are reflective and play on past incidents in her life, the writing is clear: this is not sepia-toned nostalgia. Poems like "Things We Inherit" rest on tension in wordplay -- in the second line, Woodard plants a gun, and the reader spends the next several lines jumping every time she says "shot" (which refers to liquor, a rubber band, and a photograph, but is laced with double entendre). The collection understands things in three ways: first, as a child does, second, as an adult, and third, as someone trying to marry the two experiences and find the truth between them. Solitary Bee thrums with the knowledge that so many of these moments are peaceful, but there is a stinger not far below the surface.