Amanda Moore

Amanda Moore’s debut collection of poetry, Requeening, was selected for the 2020 National Poetry Series by Ocean Vuong and published by HarperCollins/Ecco in October 2021. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Best New Poets, ZZYZVA, and Mamas and Papas: On the Sublime and Heartbreaking Art of Parenting, and her essays have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Hippocampus Magazine, and on the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s blog. She is the recipient of writing awards, residencies, and fellowships from The Brown Handler Residency, In Cahoots, The Writers Grotto, The Writing Salon, Brush Creek Arts Foundation, and The Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts.

Poetry Co-editor at Women’s Voices for Change and a reader at VIDA Review and INCH, Amanda is a high school English teacher and lives by the beach in the Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco with her husband and daughter. Source

Collapse

What do bees want? is a question I’ve never asked

myself or any expert. I know they need

to gather pollen & nectar, need water & shelter,

though they can make their own of any hollow place.

But as to want, who can say? I say

I need to take my vitamins, apply sunscreen,

eat greens & exercise–want self-care, something

I deserve (for what I do not know).

Our bodies are built to decay. I opened

the hive only as often as I was told:

to check brood, the health of the queen.

I did not know what I was looking for but trusted

diligence would keep us from disaster

They wanted me out of their way,

so I closed it all up,

left them to their own desires.

Published:

2021

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Poems of the Everyday

Science & Climate