Insects & Texts

Vladimir Nabokov, both writer and entomologist, once explained that he could not “separate the aesthetic pleasure of seeing a butterfly and the scientific pleasure of knowing what it is” [Robert H. Boyle, Sports Illustrated, 1959].

Insects and Texts: Spinning Webs of Wonder
Explora International Conference
4-5 May 2010
Toulouse Natural History Museum
France

In 2010, I was thrilled to participate in this conference dedicated to examining and thinking about insects in interdisciplinary and artful ways. My presentation consisted primarily of an annotated poetry reading.

A number of the papers/presentations from this conference appear in Insects in Literature and the Arts, edited by the conference directors, Laurence Talairach-Vielmas & Marie Bouchet (Peter Lang, 2014).

My work appears as a chapter titled “Entomology Cabinet: A Poet’s Collection.”

Sample Poem:

Mud Dauber

Back and forth between the mud flat
and the underside of the chickee roof,
the solitary dauber’s intense industry

thread-waisted
golden-winged
singing

she pastes the sticky, granular mud
forms a multi-chambered nest
repeating crescents

flies, hunts
her blue-black body
full of paralytic sting

one by one
she stuffs spiders
into the chambers

lays her eggs
in the food basket.

Leave her alone.
She is busy.
She is not interested in you.