Kierkegaard's Lunch

Today is my birthday. I am in my 50s. Suffice to say that 60 is charging over the horizon rather faster than it was and 50 is starting to look like a blip on the edge of the radar screen. It's been a lovely day. My children, who love me and whom I love dearly, have made a fuss of me and got me nice things. One decorated the house with banners and balloons and confetti. I walked out of a long and gruelling work conference call this morning to see her efforts. Friends have sent love and care and cards. I appreciate it all. As I write this, my fiancee and my youngest daughter are cooking me a birthday dinner, whilst I type away accompanied by a Sun sinking in the west and a rather nice South African Sauvignon Blanc. Life is good. I am blessed. I am loved. And yet, I know I am not loved by all. The reverse. I am hated. I sit here, ensconced in warmth and human affection and today, just for one day, I have turned the hate off. I have avoided the places where it blazes away, red...

Lockdown-style, I have recently been doing an online poetry course with Billy Collins (ex US Poet Laureate and one of my favourite poets) and have been reflecting on the state of my poetry just now. My poetry 'high water' mark was probably from mid-2015 to mid-2016. It had been building since 2010 or so but in those twelve months, my writing was really flowing. I went on a couple of courses, one quite unexpectedly, and both had a huge impact on me. I made friends at both, my first 'actual' poet friends, a number of whom I still have. Importantly for me, I found like minds at those courses. They made a huge difference to me. There is some (rather obvious) theory in creativity circles that being with a group of people who are somewhat (but not ridiculously) better than you is the most stimulating place to be. Certainly the second of these two courses was exactly this. I felt that I had scraped on to it, and I was certainly one of the least 'accomplished' a...