“[& when the bees look upon us]”
Collaborators’ Q&A
What inspired you to bring your work to Broadsided?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: I just really adore broadsides as a medium for public circulation of literature, ideas, and knowledges. They have a long history that includes their use as a kind of ethereal and accessible object for the people, and I feel this history when I encounter the form of the broadside.
What drew you to create a visual response to this poem, in particular?
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: Bees!
How did this poem come to be?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: This poem is part of my forthcoming collection, Ampersand Organ: a more-than-human lyric (Milkweed Editions, 2026) and expresses my kinship with bees, the deep respect and care I feel for them, and the ways their medicine has been part of my journey with chronic illness.
How did this image come to be?
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: I wanted to use poppy seeds and make a collage. We have bee hives at home so this was not a distant concept. Then I decided to simplify and combine the yellow tone and black lines to elicit a visual recognition.
What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem? Does the artist’s response make you see the poem differently?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: From my interpretation, the artist picked up on the reference to what bees see when they look at us, and incorporated this in a layered way into the art piece. I see reference to flower form and also the abstract quality of the images relating to form as a fluid and not-foreclosed thing.
Did anything shift for you or come into new light as you began working on your visual response?
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: Everything shifted! From my first idea, to looking up the words that were unfamiliar, to thinking about what elements were most important in my mind. This became the color of certain bees, an elbow with the suggestion of a white flower, a blue line for the sky, and dots for poppy seeds. Anthers have everything to do with my research into wildflowers, so the imagery became, hand in glove to my personal experience. I probably left out visual information that might have resonated with blood and fireflies, being sick and healing, but I decided to stay on top of the wave rather than get visually “crushed.”
What question would you like to ask your collaborator? (we will print your answers, too!)
Poet to Artist: What felt most alive for you in making this piece?
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: What came alive was the title, and then as I read the metaphors and similes, the use of language and ideas joined by healing, resilience, and physical presence—and how the poet weaved all of this to create a unique harmony. The relationship of fireflies, poppy seeds, opioids, blood, flowers, elbows, and ephemeral language jumped out at me and complicated my visual thoughts. I simplified—how could I create a harmony from what was most relevant to my personal visual interpretation? I could have gone dark, deep, spiritual, and in many other directions, but chose to stay with literally a sprinkling of thoughts, color, ideas, and mood.
Artist to Poet: What is your experience with bees? Are you writing from experience? How do poppy seeds relate to the bee? Are they pollinating on poppies?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: I feel a kinship with bees and am grateful for their medicines. They are brilliant little creatures, and so entangled with the survival of life on this planet. Their brains are about the size of a poppy seed and somehow have almost a million neurons. That astounds me and delights me to no end!
When you consider the full folio of work from this issue (see the “related broadsides” links on the left), what questions, observations, or connections arise for you?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: I’m noticing threads of more-than-human connection; of death, illness, loss, and beauty in the face of these things.
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: The poets expressed their deep feelings with passion and meaning. I admire their ability to put a voice to their experiences.
Describe your ideal “Vectorization”—where, in your wildest dreams, would you most like to see this broadside posted in the world?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: Hospitals? prisons? grey places that would be nourished by feeling?
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: There was a documentary film about a woman in Kosovo who takes over her husband’s beehives and sells the honey that is produced called Hive. I would like to see this posted there.
If this Broadsided collaboration were a type of weather, what would it be?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: That in-between space when a storm is lingering lightly but sun peeks through clouds.
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: Fair skies.
Do you have a favorite, generative prompt for artists or writers you’d like to share?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: I’d have to think about this more.
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: I am not sure what a generative prompt is. Does the question refer to AI or something that stimulates or inspires artists and writers to be creative?
Read any good books lately?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: Dreaming in the Fault Zone: a Poetics of Healing by Eleni Stecopoulos.
Seen any good art lately?
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: Kara Walker’s Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) at SF MOMA blew me away.
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: Yes, An exhibition called Gul by Wolf in India
Anything else? (Here, we invite the collaborators to invent a question, add a comment, or otherwise speak to what the questions so far have not tapped about their Broadsided experience).
Artist MJ Levy Dickson: The idea of collaborating with someone I have never met has always been intriguing.