“A Warning”

“A Warning” by Megan Hartford was created from Anna Botsford Comstock’s “How to Keep Bees” (1905). Please click here to read the poem.

About the poem and the process of composing it, Megan writes:

I chose Chapter 10 of How to Keep Bees at random. Once I dive into a text to create a found poem, one parameter I give myself is to keep the words in the order in which they appear in the source material. I begin, naturally, at the beginning of the piece, scanning through to find words and phrases that stand out to me and pairing them with other words or phrases that flow together to begin to form a story or theme. In this particular piece, I knew that I wanted to take the word honey and use it as a way to address the reader, and from there, gradually, the story emerged as I moved through the source material, gathering bits and pieces until the poem/story felt complete. To me, it feels like thrift shopping: scavenging through crowded racks to find the hidden gems into which I can breathe new life.