Today being St Valentines Day, I suppose I might be expected to churn out at least one love poem. I used to write some of those, though not any more. It is not through any disillusion with love per se, but rather the impetus to write about other things, which is stronger. Critics might argue that a portion of my verse shows an inclination to be 'half in love with easeful death', though as for that, Keats had better cause to write about it than me.

When I was a high school teacher, Valentines Day became a fund raising event for the the school's SRC. Plastic roses, cards and the like would be variously bought and delivered to classrooms, eliciting gasps of envy or embarrassment. I received my fair share of these though there was one occasion in particular that leapt to mind this morning. 

I had returned to the staff room after a class only to find my desk groaning with floral tributes, some of which were actual roses. The principal happened to be present and, alluding to the pile, asked what I was doing at school to generate such a response. Of course they were all anonymously given so I had no idea whether they came from staff or students or even outside the school.

My Head Teacher piped in to say that I had designed a unit on love poetry and had taught it to my Year 11. It was true that I had put together a short course to introduce students to poetry analysis. Love seemed like as good a theme as any, so I rounded up a few of the usual suspects (Marvell, Donne, Shakespeare, Jonson) and added (as I recall) a number of more recent examples (Browning, Rosetti, Hardy). I don't think it went down too badly at all.

But I doubt that it caused the tsunami of roses that landed on my desk that day.