A slug: there is but one external clue to the very, very strange things going on inside | Helen Sullivan

Behold the slug and you behold a teenager, in all of her magic and power

Slugs have not inspired much poetry - though this line from Brian Swann is nice: Turn them over, they're the soles of new shoes, / pale and unmarked as babies."

Virginia Woolf insulted her enemies, herself and the perfectly nice city of Brighton with slug name calling. In an essay called Spiralling around Snails and Slugs in Virginia Woolf Miscellany, Elisa Kay Sparks lists these insults. Poor creature! He knows he's but a slug"; a white and voluble slug"; Brighton a love corner for slugs". When she is lonely, Woolf writes, I relish the commonest animated slug"; when she is sick: I turned over like a slug and slept the month of February out".