NehpetsEnal - Legacy Collection

An Interview with NehpetsEnal

PP - Tell us a little something about yourself.

NehpetsEnal -

First and foremost, I like to think of myself as an easy-going armchair philosopher whose only real long-term ambition was to be a good husband (married my much younger wife 38 years ago and have an interesting, but unconventional marriage) and a father, so almost every decision I've made has been focused on this purpose and now my family a Daughter and two Sons are making their mark in the world, a job well-done, but never finished, the grandchildren now need my attention, got to live forever.

It's now time for me to focus more on myself which isn't as easy as it sounds, I became a Septuagenarian in September 2019 and still work 3 days a week to help keep my brain alive and in my head, I'm still in my twenties.

I like to play golf, go fishing with my lifetime buddy AJI, walk and cycle a bit, socialize with close friends and family as I'm not an extrovert and of course I love to write.

PP - What would your life motto be?

NehpetsEnal -

Many mottos inspire me, but the overriding one is:

'Every cloud has a silver lining'.

I have found in life that we are frequently confronted with things that don't go to plan and have learnt to take a deep breath and look for what good may come from it (serendipity), this enables me to avoid depression and grief from loss and the ability look to the future with a positive outlook, whatever the adversity.

PP - How long have you been writing poetry?

NehpetsEnal -

I can't be exact but can assure I was in my fifties when I got my first personal computer and George Bush was president. I'd been out for the night and consumed a few drinks and no doubt been in conversation about my disgust at the direction our political leaders were taking us. I was inspired to turn on my PC and wrote a poem titled Around & Around, a philosophical representation of how we keep doing the same thing time and time again and never learn and then congratulate ourselves for self-destruction and death we cause to each other and the world.

PP - You are a new word in the dictionary, what word are you and what do you mean?

NehpetsEnal –

Happiness: The world would be a better place if everyone was happy, it's not that I think love is overrated, but that happiness is underrated because I believe if you're truly happy you can't possibly want for anything, which makes it the key to a beautiful and fulfilling life.

PP – Who is your favourite poet?

NehpetsEnal -

I genuinely do not have a favourite poet as already mentioned before my fifties I had no interest and always found classical poetry was often too cryptic, being logical and stoic it never appealed to me. However, if I have to pick a favourite it is Pam Ayres MBE who rose to fame in the UK when appearing on the TV show 'Opportunity Knocks' in 1975and read her poetry, her witty and amusing presentation of her poetry captured the hearts of a nation and at 72 is still one of its treasures.

PP - Where do you find inspiration for your poetry?

NehpetsEnal –

My primary inspiration comes from my armchair philosophy, a love of science and science fiction (especially Star Trek and the message it carried) and a desire to see everyone get a better share of the happiness this world has to offer all its inhabitants.

As a point of interest, I still struggle to think of myself as a poet, to me, it is a form of storytelling, how we have carried our species history since we learned to speak.

However, my daughter has been my inspiration she has written stories since early childhood, hopefully, inspired by the ones I made up and told at the bedside helping her to sleep.

PP – You are having a dinner party and you can only invite 10 people, living or dead, real or fictional; who do you invite and why?

NehpetsEnal -

I could get all clever and drum up a list of some amazing people but I'm going, to be honest, the guests would be the people who made my life possible, without whose genes I would not exist.

I'd like to meet my ancestors, Great Grandparents, my Grandparents and my parents when they were teenagers and get to know them as a peer and learn of their aspirations.

I know that would be twelve, but I'm sure they'd happily squeeze up.