Above are the 150 most common words in poems about Blattodea (1700s to 2021). Note that LOVE (7th) ranks higher than DEATH (13th) and DIE (150th). Maybe our collective perception of these insects is more positive than I anticipated? Something to mull over on a Saturday.

This list is from a quick analysis of 369 poems that mention Blattodea (cockroaches and termites), including the poem I mentioned in my last post: Broader impacts of insect decline. We are looking to scale this data set up to include poems about any insect and explore the results across time. Here’s the list if you’re interested, with the frequencies in parentheses: time (210), night (168), see (163), day (151), said (150), man (136), love (135), life (133), black (132), house (123), nothing (118), white (112), dead (110), long (107), light (107), under (105), water (104), place (102), years (100), dark (100), eyes (98), roaches (96), death (95), cockroach (93), left (92), red (91), sun (91), thought (89), blue (87), look (86), bed (85), hand (83), head (83), face (83), god (82), mother (80), termites (80), men (80), blood (80), things (80), children (79), inside (79), great (79), people (79), room (79), find (75), earth (74), call (73), heart (71), air (71), green (70), woman (70), year (69), tree (68), city (68), cockroaches (68), hear (67), trees (65), feet (65), open (64), lost (64), father (63), name (63), body (62), birds (61), living (61), small (61), right (61), work (61), child (60), past (59), give (59), remember (59), hands (59), rain (59), ground (59), morning (59), floor (58), door (58), young (58), hair (57), moon (57), knew (56), end (56), full (55), sound (55), voice (55), outside (55), sky (55), river (55), fire (54), roach (52), live (52), eye (52), big (51), sea (51), kitchen (50), mouth (50), land (50), high (50), days (50), read (50), song (50), gold (49), cold (49), hard (49), school (49), street (49), sweet (48), paper (47), heard (47), wind (47), skin (47), mind (46), called (46), food (45), leave (45), eat (45), wild (45), making (45), together (44), yellow (44), watch (44), dust (44), cut (44), summer (44), glass (43), window (43), sleep (43), heaven (43), better (42), human (42), today (42), music (42), family (42), owl (42), wood (42), fear (42), leaves (41), country (41), wall (41), girl (40), legs (40), turned (40), deep (40), war (40), sing (40), books (39), die (39).