Weekly Newsletter - 24th March 2024
The week I switched things up
Today marks the end of my bar and retail jobs before I plunge into more writing (here and for others!) and some media work for organisations and people I care deeply about. I’ll try to get a new poem to you all next week, but after that I take a few day off to get myself re-energised for this new chapter.
Those jobs have done exactly what they needed to in giving me a routine for some sanity while working out my next steps after leaving a dentistry course that I realised would leave me in a soul-crushed place for the rest of my working life. But I always intended them to be temporary, and now I have routes into more meaningful ways of creating value in the world - and having that value reciprocated - continuing in those positions would have simply hindered my ability to develop further. I'm not someone who's interested in just working meaningless 9-5 jobs to pay off meaningless debts that I took on just to work those 9-5 jobs in the first place, only to build up a tiny trickle of a pension that I can only begin to see the reward from when I'm too old to make full use of it. I can only see that as a waste of 50+ years of life where I could be contributing to things in a manner which I genuinely enjoy.
With the broader switch-up occurring in my life, I thought this would also be a good time to also switch-up the format for my newsletters to include some more of the poems I’ve been reading recently. Let me know how this new newsletter format lands with you, and if there's anything else you'd like to see from it!
With that in mind, let’s look at something…
From Poets Past
Here’s a poem I’ve had saved for a few weeks now, which came my way thanks to the wonderful
. The decline of authentic masculinity in society is a topic that interests me greatly, and I often find myself wondering how much of the problems we see around us can be attributed to boys being unable to make that effective transition into manhood.To me, “Bluebird” speaks to what has become of men as a result. It’s a haunting, powerful read. I’ve sent Charles Bukowski’s poem, “Bluebird” to a few friends now, all of whom have resonated with its message. As such, it only seems right to include it by linking you to the original post from Poetic Outlaws, along with a Tom o’Bedlam reading of the poem put to music. Be sure to give them a follow, as they share a range of great poems from amazing authors.
From Poets Present
“I Am A Reprint” by Substack’s very own
blew me away as I was reading it, partly because I’m in the midst of my own shadow work and the message here resonated exactly with the work I am doing there. It is frank, honest, and cuts straight to the heart. And it’s awesome.To my memory, this is the first prose poem I’ve shared here. In all honesty, I find it much harder to resonate with prose poems than I do more structured forms of poetry - partly because I enjoy that structure and form ultimately conveys meaning in and of itself which helps further the impact of the words it contains. It takes something exceptional for me to enjoy prose poetry, and “I Am A Reprint” is one of those pieces. Go read it over on Substack and be sure you’re subscribed to The Rewind if you’re not already.
From Me
As for my own releases, this week sees the release of “Medicine Men” - a commentary on the state of institutionalised medicine men, and where we may wish to move in the future. It’s a highly structured piece, playing with sonnet forms to convey whether different approaches to healing that we see in the modern world are truly loving. It was also my first time using a different video editing program than usual to create the poem for “Born Anew”, so be sure to let me know how you found it in the comments.
This week I also released a Tribe-exclusive essay on my thoughts around structure and form in poetry, which required me to touch on videogames and whether we have free will or not. We also break down some of my own poems and look at how I approached form in them. So a very wide-ranging piece!
And Finally…
Thank you for continuing to follow my progress. If you want to support my work, there are numerous ways you can doing that, including:
Becoming a Tribe member (paid subscriber)
Sharing the poems that resonate with you most with others
If you enjoy my poems, or are looking for poems on different subjects and of different natures, consider checking out my 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