Today’s Poem: The Windhover

On solitary eccentrics, their compulsive prosodies, and the glory of the hawk

A kestrel (Wikimedia Commons)

Britain used to be, and perhaps still is, full of solitary, hyper-focused eccentrics, of whom John Alec Baker (1926–1987) is one specimen. J.A. Baker, Chelmsford branch manager for the British Automobile Association, was a  man whose entire consciousness seems to have consisted of a fascination not with cars, but with hawks.

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