Author's Notes

The Moth Box started as two collections. One was a series of poems about having lived in Wales all my adult life .The other was a collection of nature poems inspired by a course where I first encountered a moth box.
A moth box is a light box to attract moths, so that the species can be counted and identified .
It is filled with torn up egg boxes and twigs so the moths settle and sleep when the light is turned off .
In the morning the box is opened and the insects can be examined under a hand lens , identified, and then released by putting onto branches where they blend into the trees. It was exciting. I had never held a moth on my hand before.I could see the scales of pattern on its wings.
I grow Evening Primrose as it attracts insects, but the moths had just been shapes attracted to the scent of the flowers.Now, I discovered the wonderful names of moths: Scorched Wing, Tussock, White Ermine, Marbled Coronet, Phoenix. It was poetry.Both moths and butterflies belong to the insect species Lepidoptera.There are more moths than butterflies, yet we are more aware of the latter.
There are at least 160,000 species of moth.Being night time creatures they are more elusive and drab.
I tend to think of poets as the moths of the literary scene.
People can usually name a novelist, but have to struggle to think of a poem or a poet. I hope that will change this year with the celebration of the centenary of Dylan Thomas’ birth, Dylan100.
I have always written poetry.Maybe this is because poems are small on the page. However, my favourite poem as a child was the long poem Hiawatha .I didn’t encounter précis, the art of reducing a long piece of writing to a concise distillation of meaning, until I was 13.At first I preferred comprehension, but then developed a love of précis, taking words out of a piece to make it more succinct.This is a skill a poet needs, and working with an editor helps this process to take the poems from the rough diamond to the polished gem.
I was fortunate to have the poet Alan Kellermann as my editor; he shuffled the two small collections together.He also sourced the amazing cover photo of a Polyphemus moth.
The collection I sent to him had a different title. I had once called one of the collections The Moth Box and other poems . Seredipidity. I didn’t know then that mine was the first book he’d edited, and he says that makes it special.For me it’s special as it’s my first book with Parthian.

THE BLOG TOUR

What am I am working on?
At the moment I’m working on promoting my book The Moth Box which was published last October. Although it is available from Amazon and from the Parthian website I’m trying to get it put in local bookshops and art galleries . I’m having some success and it was in the window at Bookworm and is stocked in the Aberystwyth Arts Centre bookshop and in Leafed Through in Cardigan. Poetry books don’t sell in large numbers and so I’m doing signings and readings to help promote it while waiting for my reviews, which again will bring attention to the book.
How does my work differ from others in the genre?
Poetry is a vast genre . I write mainly in free verse. I do occasionally write in form: couplets, sonnets, villanelle and haiku are my favourite. I’ve written sestina and mirror poems too. I like to think my poetry has its own distinctive voice, but as long as I’ve achieved the best words in the best order I’m satisfied
Why do I write?
I write because I’m obsessed with letters and words, and moving them about the page in order to say something original, or something I think is original. It is a need inside me to make patterns out of letters.
How does my writing process work?
Sometimes it is inspiration or a visual image. This morning it was the magpies again . I look out on them from the office window. I store the image until I have time to note it down. Often my inspiration comes from the natural world: the turn of the seasons, the colour of the sky in the morning. sometimes these images go no further, but sometimes they lift off the ground like the magpies into a verse .

Next week The Blog Tour takes us to poets Martin Locock-http://martinlocock.blogspot.com/ and
Jackie Biggs-http://jackie-news.blogspot

THE MOTH BOX

After a long break from my blog,I'm back with my new collection of poetry The Moth Box which is available from bookshops and from Amazon. I am giving readings and book signings to promote it.

Honno's Poem of the Month

Delighted to have Honno's first poem in their new Poem of the Month slot in this their celebratory 25th anniversary year. http://www.honno.co.uk/potmjuly12.php Zig Zag For Mary MacGregor There are no stars tonight as we walk into the dark from the light of the bookshop talking about words and time. 'I love the Welsh word for time, amser' you say breaking it down into am and ser, translating it around stars. You talk about Dylan Thomas: 'And time has ticked a heaven round the stars' writing amser in the margin of his poem. You are a face at poetry readings, a lover of words, you tell me another favourite: igam-ogam, Welsh for zig-zag. Time parts us in the car park, you make for Rhayader, and I for Aberaeron, I take with me words like stars to light my zig-zag way. Sue Moules has had work in two Honno anthologies: • Exchanges, poems by women in Wales, edited by Jude Brigley (1990) • On My Life, edited by Leigh Verrill-Rhys (1989) She has been widely published in literary magazines including Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Planet, Ambit, The North, Orbis, Acumen and Roundyhouse. Her work has appeared in many anthologies including The Whispering Room (Kingfisher), Poetry Wales 25 years (Seren), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (Cinnamon), The Voice of Women in Wales(Wales Women's Coalition), Of Cake and Words (Cledlyn), A Star Fell From Orion (Peter, Bridge and Stephen).

Hay Festival

Well, I'm back on the blog,after a 9 month break. A wet and stormy Hay celebrating its 25th birthday. Honno,the Welsh Women's Press, were also celebrating 25 years,and I am a proud owner of one of the original shares.

October

October - a long time since my last blog, but nothing writerly has happened. When I don't commit to writing then I drift. Anyway, a photo of the fantastic Virginia Creeper in the garden which is lifting my spirits at the moment, as I think about an elegy I want to write for a friend.

YOU WRITE LIKE

So I think I'll give it a go and type in a piece of fiction.It's analysed as like James Joyce. Wow,I admire Joyce, although I still have't finished Ulysees,and have no intention of reading Finnegan's Wake,but I love Portrait of the Artist and Dubliners.

Then I type in a poem, and again it's analsed as James Joyce style. I'm feeling really smug.Then I think perhaps it's fixed so I type in my shopping list and that is not in James Joyce style! This has me thinking about my voice and my style-the aim of every writer is to have their own style, their own voice, so I need to keep writing until I've found it.