Although the advent of affordable, good-quality digital photography means ‘bugs’ (insects, invertebrates) are arguable becoming more popular as non-specialists can see and appreciate them in detail, some are still unpopular. Like spiders. Now, I like spiders – I’m an entomologist in my non-art life, so it goes with the territory – plus they eat much more annoying beasts like mosquitos. Unsurprisingly, when I found about the Fair Acre Press Maligned Species Project, I was keen to get involved. The project aims to collect and publish poems about species which are not always loved – and the first of these, Spiders, is now available as an eBook or pdf download. I was pleased to have a couple of poems accepted for this collection (look out for False reporting and Good things, small packages), but even better, a proportion from all sales will be donated to Buglife (a bit like the RSPB but for invertebrates). I hope you enjoy it – it’s not expensive – and look out for the rest of the series covering frogs, nettles and grey squirrels.
A splendid spider in our garden – she feels the love!
Dave Hubble 