Poem of the Month - June 2009

This piece of writing was selected by the staff at the Scottish Poetry Library who receive Foundation funding from the Scottish Arts Council

Sonnet of the Noctuoid Moth After ‘Auditory encoding during the last moment of a moth’s life* I have been granted 3 conditions, all referring to the predatory bat: no-bat,                          far-bat, near-bat.  I have been given ears to listen, to hear the no-bat, far-bat, near-bat. Each ear has two cells, and possibly a third, vestigial one. I am allowed what they are calling anti-bat-manouevres – auditory moments –              evasive flight – before my death. In real life, before my death, the situation may be more erratic, beautifully               pointless. by Dawn Wood from Quarry (Matlock: Templar Poetry, 2008) *Fullard, J. et al. 2003. Journal of Experimental Biology, 206:281-294 Poem supplied courtesy of Templar Poetry

A few words about the poem The inspiration for Sonnet of the Noctuoid Moth was a research paper which I chanced upon in The Journal of Experimental Biology, and was immediately caught by the poetic phrases. The authors were reporting experiments designed to study the ears of moths. They had recorded the echo-location calls of predator bats and then measured the response of the laboratory moths when these were played back to them.  I wrote the poem because it seemed to me that, and maybe this is the case in any factual knowledge, there was something behind the scenes waiting to be heard.

About the poet Dawn Wood grew up in Omagh, Country Tyrone, and moved to Dundee in 1986. Her academic background is science-related, and she currently works as a lecturer, teaching food and consumer studies, qualitative science, and microbiology at The University of Abertay, Dundee. Her first collection of poetry, Quarry, was published by Templar Poetry in 2008.