Gigs seem to be a bit thin on the ground these days, for some reason, so a lot more writing has been going on, sometimes on unlikely subjects.
Since boyhood, I’ve been fascinated by insects and have collected a small library of books, especially about one kind of insect. This has now resulted in a collection of wayward biographical sketches of a staggering, or scuttling, range of beetles.
After the unfettered scope of Better Late Than Sorry, it was a refreshing venture to narrow the focus and try to come up with dozens of poems based on sometimes very brief descriptions, lovely old pictures from over a century ago or stunning recent photographs.
It turns out that beetles are not especially interested in trombones, but it may be that some kind of musical pieces will nonetheless be written for future trombone poetry events.
Other books are in progress too, to be published by Redriff Press, and the beetles have been a great inspiration for these projects. I hope this book will be some source of inspiration to readers, too.
Beetles is available from Amazon.