Bloom & Bones is a collaboration between Swansea poets Rae Howells and Jean James with colour at its heart. In words rather than paint, the poets capture the shades of very different stories. From Georgia O'Keeffe to a murderer on the run, from a lonely woman in an insane asylum to goldfinches visiting an expectant mother, and from a plague of ladybirds to a meteoroid tracking through space, these poems take the reader on a rainbow journey through time and place. The pamphlet is inspired by the bestselling book The Secret Lives of Colour, and works through the ten family colours set out in its pages, beginning with white, through yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, blue, green, and brown, concluding with a dark full stop at black.
Rae Howells Libri



With a forensic eye, Howells takes us on a journey through ordinary human lives and the extraordinary natural world we are in danger of losing. Through each exacting portrait, we begin to understand something special, a language of bees, and discover for ourselves how intimately we are all connected and what the natural world is trying to tell us.
When a local common is threatened with development, one poet explores its secrets, discovering extraordinary natural treasures and wonderful people fighting to defend them. Can they save this uncommon common?