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Like Zeros, Like Pearls
92 pages, Paperback
Published May 6, 2025
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May 12, 2025
Zeros and Pearls
Insect have always fascinated me. They can be selfless to the point of dying for others. They can be ruthless killers. And, many of them are plain odd. In her new collection Like Zeros, Like Pearls, Lola Haskins portrays insect behavior and often parallels them to human behavior.
In this collection are pearls, the insects we revere and love—butterflies, the vibrancy of some beetles, and honey bees even though they can be among the ruthless and odd (oh, how beauty trumps all)—and zeros—the uglies, the scary, the biters we stomp out, spray away, or feel perfectly justified killing. Haskins captures the one-night standers and the flaunters of beauty with almost mystical allure but are interested only in reproduction. She portrays water striders signaling “each other by sending out ripples” or the delicate cicada crawling from its shell “As delicately/as someone stepping from/a bath.” Or the wasp who grows sleepy, “Then, like a breached ship/on a darkening sea,/ [slips] out of sight.” Oh, and there’s the glow worm (lampyris) who bites a snail’s foot “until the snail/can no longer move./A few more kisses liquefy/the flesh whose sweet/juice he sucks” until only a shell clings “to its grass stalk, You asked me about love.”
Beetles comprise over forty percent of all insects and come in thousands of species. Haskins explains the African beetles can roll their dung balls “in straight lines only if/they can see the Milky Way. Put/a lid over them, and they founder./As do we, day by smoky day.”
The bumble bees (Psithyrus) are unwarranted invaders, staking out new territory. They enter another’s nest, kill the queen, destroy the eggs and larvae and take over the nest with their own queen. As Haskins says, “Think/cruelty. Think greed./Think the rise of empires./Think their inevitable fall.” How like us they are. The poems in this collection are often tiny distillations that portray, despite their odd or nefarious ways, insects as more charming than harmful. This book is a delightful read and may give you a new perspective on what’s flying around you or crawling at your feet.
Insect have always fascinated me. They can be selfless to the point of dying for others. They can be ruthless killers. And, many of them are plain odd. In her new collection Like Zeros, Like Pearls, Lola Haskins portrays insect behavior and often parallels them to human behavior.
In this collection are pearls, the insects we revere and love—butterflies, the vibrancy of some beetles, and honey bees even though they can be among the ruthless and odd (oh, how beauty trumps all)—and zeros—the uglies, the scary, the biters we stomp out, spray away, or feel perfectly justified killing. Haskins captures the one-night standers and the flaunters of beauty with almost mystical allure but are interested only in reproduction. She portrays water striders signaling “each other by sending out ripples” or the delicate cicada crawling from its shell “As delicately/as someone stepping from/a bath.” Or the wasp who grows sleepy, “Then, like a breached ship/on a darkening sea,/ [slips] out of sight.” Oh, and there’s the glow worm (lampyris) who bites a snail’s foot “until the snail/can no longer move./A few more kisses liquefy/the flesh whose sweet/juice he sucks” until only a shell clings “to its grass stalk, You asked me about love.”
Beetles comprise over forty percent of all insects and come in thousands of species. Haskins explains the African beetles can roll their dung balls “in straight lines only if/they can see the Milky Way. Put/a lid over them, and they founder./As do we, day by smoky day.”
The bumble bees (Psithyrus) are unwarranted invaders, staking out new territory. They enter another’s nest, kill the queen, destroy the eggs and larvae and take over the nest with their own queen. As Haskins says, “Think/cruelty. Think greed./Think the rise of empires./Think their inevitable fall.” How like us they are. The poems in this collection are often tiny distillations that portray, despite their odd or nefarious ways, insects as more charming than harmful. This book is a delightful read and may give you a new perspective on what’s flying around you or crawling at your feet.
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