The Poetry Bug

Throughout history poets have been drawn to write about insects, and entomologists have been drawn to try their hand at poetry. The concentrated industry of the ant and the delicate beauty of the butterfly, the rituals of the death watch beetle and the ethereal vision of glow worms at dusk, have all been captured in verse. In the pages of this anthology Tennent brings together classic poets such as Virgil and Byron and modern writers such as Pam Ayres, Spike Milligan and Peter Redgrove, alongside a wealth of other poets and amateur poets from different continents, to explore the mysterious world of the insect through poetry.

Always interested in wildlife, and particularly butterflies, John Tennent resigned from the Army in 1991 to pursue research into Lepidoptera and the history of natural history in many parts of the world, usually on the path least travelled. He has described more than 100 butterflies new to science – many discovered by himself. He is the author of some 220 scientific papers and three books on butterflies.