The Week of 200 Subscribers
Weekly Newsletter - 14th April 2024
Hello lovely people.
Because of your support, we hit 200 subscribers this week, which still blows my mind. Thank you all for being here and supporting my work, and I look forward to continuing to bring you pieces relevant to the current condition we find ourselves in. In honour of the occasion, I have updated the page for “Why I Write” - which was a celebration of reaching 100 subscribers - with an audio reading of the poem. Check it out below:
Almost everything else from me this week has ended up with a link to
, a fellow Substack writer and poet who contributes to , , and The New Lyre Magazine. Both of my “From Poets Past” and “From Poets Present” come from David’s Substack, as well as one of the articles I link to as part of the poem I released this week. Credit also to the excellent for bringing me on to David’s work.From Poets Past
This isn’t the first time I’ve shared a piece from Edgar Allan Poe. Back at the end of January, I shared his classic posthumously-published poem, “Alone”, which I still adore.
Thanks to David, I got to read his poem, “To One In Paradise” again this week. I seem to remember coming across it once before and not quite getting it, but on this read-through it resonated far more with me. You can find the text of the poem and a reading from David below:
From Poets Present
So what about David himself? I found “The Storm” to be a great thought-provoking narrative that did excellently in encouraging me to ask questions about my own fears and perspectives I hold on the challenges I take. It makes for a wonderful read, which you can find below:
From Me
New Poems
It’s taken me a lot longer to prepare this poem for you all than I had originally anticipated, but “The Revolution Was Already Televised” is here, offering a somewhat abstract take on ideas around manipulation through media. I particularly enjoyed doing all the visuals associated with this one. Check it out below:
You may also have noticed that I’ve been taking part in
‘s “NaPoWriMo Substack Edition” and writing a poem every day based on the prompt given. I won’t be sharing all of those in these newsletters, but here’s one I have a strong affinity to that I feel called to revisit and refine some more for a proper release. The 8th March prompt on unusual encounters had me thinking of war poets meeting their foes on the battlefield - specifically, Keith Douglas’ “Vergissmeinnicht”, which I covered in a previous newsletter. This prompted me to write my own poem around this theme, which I entitle, “A Dead Poet’s Face”. Enjoy:I hope to never see a dead poet’s face in a battle where words were traded for weapons. I wish not to tread over literal wastelands, littered with corpses of soft-spoken foes that look just like me, jackets still stuffed with half-finished verse on forget-me-nots and the fields of Flanders, and bookworm tongues caked with foul dirt. I hope to never see me ripped from my page (by impatient readers with no time for prose) into a place that spills blood and not ink. In hallowed silence, punctuated in violence, if my hands still trembled, by the fall of night, then in a mirror, by pale moonlight, I know I’d be seeing a dead poet’s face.
“A Dead Poet’s Face” - A Poem by Tom Shaw
Tribe Essay
I have a new essay out this week for my Tribe members (paid subscribers), and I’m really happy with how this turned out. It’s certainly been one of my favourite bit of non-poetic writings that I’ve undertaken over the past few years.
If you’ve been subscribed for a little while, you may know I’ve been thinking a lot about 1927’s “Metropolis” lately, first giving it mention in my newsletter a few weeks ago. But I’ve remained absorbed in its world ever since, to the point where I was compelled to go into the novel version (by the same author as the screenplay, Thea von Harbou) and it’s original German version to see how it expands on the film.
This exploration has synergised with a lot of conversations I’ve had recently around moving into heart space with some of my personal mentors. I do believe the struggle that individuals and societies are facing now is one where we cannot truly feel one another’s humanity - on a one-to-one and a broader level. These thoughts have all worked themselves into an essay which covers the film and some other supporting materials in concluding, just as Metropolis has, that “The Mediator Between The Head And The Hands Must Be The Heart”.
You can check it out above in full if you’re a Tribe member, and I’d highly recommend so you can read this piece. But, if you’re not in a position to do so, I do offer you the option to unlock one “paywalled” article for free, and this would be an excellent place to use that. That said, this also won’t be the last time I talk about this film, so using the Referral System which I introduced at the end of March is also a great way to gain access to this piece for those willing to gift their time instead of a financial contribution.
YouTube Channel
I’ve taken the step of making a YouTube channel as another place whereby the video versions of my poems and clips from interviews will live.
I’ll also be using YouTube as a means of running some livestreams for live readings, poetic events, possibly even live interviews. I know YouTube has a reputation of blocking and banning even non-controversial content (I recall stories of people being blocked for quietly reading non-controversial books on a stream!), so we’ll see how it treats me as a platform.
I did create a Rumble channel a while ago. However, as
has rightly pointed out in the past, the financial background of Rumble certainly raises my eyebrow, and may indeed be no better than YouTube. Admittedly I haven’t given my Rumble as much love as perhaps I ought to have done lately, but I’m currently in the process of getting all of my back-catalogue updated on both of these platforms.And Finally
Thank you for continuing to follow my progress. If you enjoy my works, consider checking out my poetry book, “Born Anew”, which you can find out more about below:
It's incredibly heartwarming to know you are here and believe in the work I'm doing, and I can't wait to be able to share more with you and the rest of the world soon.
With gratitude,
Tom
This is so beautiful:
“jackets still stuffed
with half-finished verse
on forget-me-nots and
the fields of Flanders,
and bookworm tongues
caked with foul dirt.”
Congrats!!!