By retirement one would normally expect to have identified, explored and developed any creative potential one had but it was only as recently as August 2014 that I wrote my first verse. Since then I have hardly stopped! I would encourage anyone who feels they might have some creative potential lurking inside of them to explore it, in my case I have found it very rewarding. I offer you the results of my new found inspiration in this little book. Some of the poems are specifically Cornish others obliquely so, ultimately I have lived and worked in this magical County for most of my life, but some refer to my childhood in Lancashire and other great landscape love Cumbria and the Lake District. I make no apology for stating that my poetry aims to please, you will find an almost total predominance of rhyme simply because rhyme and metered verse is my preferred medium. If I may quote the celebrated American poet Robert Frost, "Free verse is like playing tennis with the net down". I love most to write about nature, about the landscape and the creatures that reside in it, including people. The poems are roughly grouped by themes, for example the natural world, personal experiences, family, love, Cornwall, etc. I hope you enjoy them it will be a great thrill for me to think you will.
About the Author: Frederick Howarth was born in Lancashire in 1942, a War Baby. By the time of his birth his father was serving with the Eighth Army in North Africa. Shortly after the end of the War, on his father's return to civilian life, "Freddy's" mother died in childbirth and he was left in the care of Aunts until he was eight when his father remarried and he returned to live with him. Left school at 15 to work in numerous and diverse jobs but crucially at the age of 22 his work took him away from the North West to Bristol which became a springboard for his future life and where he met his first wife. Encouraged by his then father-in-law, the Rev A.R.W. Gray of Tresillian, he pursued full time higher education which culminated in a University Honours Degree followed by teaching posts, first in Cumbria and later in Cornwall, where he has remained. Divorced and remarried, he has two adult sons from his first marriage and three grandsons. A late convert to writing poetry which he embraced well after his retirement from teaching.