The Miller Aud-cast | February 03, 2021

Hello hello hello and here we are, it’s Episode 6. This episode features “The Distant Sound of Bees,” a collaboration between the poet Molly Bashaw and the saxophonist and composer Johannes.

Molly Bashaw is the author of the poetry collection The Whole Field Still Moving Inside It, published in 2014. Her essays and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, The New England Review, The Iowa Review, Crazyhorse, and others.  Johannes Liepold is a jazz saxophone player and composer. The text was written by Molly, the sound engineering and production are by Johannes. All sounds and music were written, created, performed and recorded by Molly, Johannes, and the honeybees.

“The Distant Sound of Bees” is a deeply felt reflection on a couple’s efforts to conceive after losing a child. The fruitlessness of these efforts lead them to beekeeping, and the result is a yearning odyssey in Bashaw’s voice, Liepold’s saxophone, and the cloud of buzzing around their hive and the bees’ circuitous forays. The hive itself becomes a material, living presence that contains its own promises and possibilities, and forges connections and reconnections to family and community. In the face of certain want and uncertain outcomes, this attentive and moving piece finds the only resolutions many of us have, in ritual, in family and friends, and “desperate love.” Enjoy.