Surviving America 035: Poems for Men

[00:00:03] You're listening to PBN. Your path back to stability here.

[00:00:36] Break time, PBN family. It's one of those, it's gonna be one of those. You hear the checky brown city walk, you know it's gonna be one of those. I'm a little smidge, I'm a little period in today's show, it's all I am is a little dot.

[00:00:55] You know how much, there's only so much seeds in the ground, rice in the bucket, ammo in the can kind of talk you can do. What is the course of the life of mortal men on the earth?

[00:01:20] Most men eddy about here and there, eat and drink, chatter and love and hate, gather and squander. Are raised aloft, are hurled in the dust, striving blindly, achieving nothing. And then they die, perish. And no one asks who or what they have been, more than he asks what waves in the moonlit solitudes mild

[00:01:51] Of the midmost ocean have swelled, foam for a moment and gone. It's probably one of the finest collections of words on the planet to be quite honest with you. That from Rugby Chapel by Matthew Arnold is uh, it's amazing. The sound bite ends. So maybe what we'll do is we'll just ease it out.

[00:02:21] I'm the hooded poet today, okay? What you see before ye in the video, if you're not listening audio, Is my new book Poems for Men. Which will be out Father's Day. On Father's Day. Which is, well let's say what it is, okay? So, how can we do this better actually? This is good but not great.

[00:02:50] Is this better? This is probably better. Ah, that's pretty good. I don't know if it'll convey. But then again we can make it work, right? Yeah, let's go with that. This is probably the Father's Day gift that the fathers don't know they need. This is the gift that fathers don't know they need. But trust me, they need it.

[00:03:17] This is a gift that you can give in Kindle on Father's Day. I may even open up the date a little early so you can order it and get the physical copy in Dad's hands early. A lifelong mission for me, just so you know. Right? Poems for Men is a collection of my own writings and a collection of some of the great Victorian poets of all time who have really basically written about...

[00:03:47] You read those things and you go, what the hell am I reading? What am I reading when I read Victorian poetry, right? Is it all love stories and this and that? The poem I just read, Rugby Chapel, is really just an epic about Matthew Arnold's father dying.

[00:04:07] And what you wind up reading when you really start getting into these Victorian age poems and poetry at large, you know, is men's issues. There's no real better way to put it. You know what I mean? It's ancient men's issues that really mirror modern men's issues.

[00:04:28] It's just we've been conditioned and we've grown up in a world where they are like, you know, it's really not cool to read poetry. Poetry is something to be mocked and laughed at. And all those books and all those great writings can be burnt and we can just pretend like they don't exist. So the only people that suffer that are men. Right? They're the only people that suffer it. Well, women too, but everyone suffers it.

[00:04:57] But in a moment like this, in a moment of really an existential crisis for men, particularly young men, we got to reach back into these old pages. You know what I mean? It's essential. So young men, young fathers. What I really look to convey in this book is life is deeper than you think. Life is fuller than you think.

[00:05:28] And your problems are. This is probably the most important thing that I look to convey in this book, and it is that your problems are our problems. Because when you're feeling depressed and things like that, you feel like, you know, the isolation is strong. And you feel like I've got this collection of problems and it's just not fair and it's crazy. And, you know, what? How come I have to deal with it? I don't want to deal with it.

[00:05:55] I don't want to deal with these things and so on. But the reality is, the deeper you dig into even poetry of the Middle Ages, Shakespearean, right? Shakespeare's a great one for it. You know what I mean? You see in Shakespeare all the problems that you have today are the problems of the past, right? They just have different names, different technologies attributed to them.

[00:06:22] But at their core, we're all suffering the same males that we always have been. And I don't know if women get it, but I know that men get the importance of the camaraderie of suffering, right? Like in other words, the burden is the burden and that's what it is to be a man. But at the same time, the camaraderie of suffering is, it can actually be a beautiful thing.

[00:06:51] It's a necessary thing. It's brotherhood, right? So in writing this over the years, collecting these poems that I have been reading literally since eighth grade, this is what we've come up with. This is what we've come up with. The head there on the cover is an important piece. That's a very important piece.

[00:07:19] It's worth talking about because let me shrink myself and we'll talk about the cover in the head. Everything is a thing, okay? With me. There's always little things and little... I gathered some of the most important statistics I could find on men, which are not easy to find, particularly the good ones. And it's sort of an alternating set of circumstances on that cover.

[00:07:48] Some good, some bad. Suicide, isolation, and then the power of fatherhood. The, you know, what men represent as 75% of the first responders in the country. So it's kind of an overall look, right? Just a little addition to the cover itself. But the centerpiece is this colossal head of a Greek youth.

[00:08:18] It's literally called the Colossal Head of a Youth. And this sculpture is amazing to me because, first of all, all of its reasoning faculties are missing because it's like... Just the phrase colossal head of a youth is hilarious, right? Because you remember what that's like, right? When is your head more colossal than when you're a youth, particularly like your late teens, right?

[00:08:43] The Colossal Head of a Youth is a sculpture from Greece, 2nd century. Looks like this still to this day, beautiful. And I think the name and the imagery of it is just perfect for what I'm trying to convey in this book. You know what I mean? Like... Just look at it. You know what I mean? I think it's perfect.

[00:09:14] But, you know, we go from that sort of colossal head of youth. I remember, like... I just remember it so vividly going from this colossal head of the youth mentality. You know, I know everything. I am gonna do X, Y, and Z. I don't care how irrational it is. I don't care how impossible it is, whatever the situation is. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it all. And no one's gonna get in my way and so on. And this is the way it's gonna go down. And I'm in control of everything and, you know, so on and so forth.

[00:09:46] And then all of a sudden you wind up getting whacked with, like, reality. Right? The colossal head of the youth gets smashed just like this one. And you realize, oh, this is what life really is. Okay. And some people change up strategy. Some people fall into degradation. Some people fall into addiction. Whatever it is. You know, whatever it takes. Every man's path is his own, right? But... Yeah, that...

[00:10:14] This is fundamentally... What's up, Fire Wolf? This is fundamentally the, uh... My best way to convey what's inside the book. You know, and inside the book, you'll find some of the greatest. What you'll find, for those of you who have followed me along for a long time, I think probably the greatest gems, if you like my writing, then of course you'll like the poetry. The poetry is... It's good.

[00:10:44] I mean, I've done it a long time. It should be good. You know? It's not like I'm patting myself on the back saying I've really done something. It should be good. I've read poetry a long time. I've written poetry a long time. It shouldn't be garbage. You know what I mean? These are like simple expectations from a writer. But what you'll find in there that I think is really of note are not only the poems that I've read all my life,

[00:11:12] but I started reading through them and some of them are long. You know what I mean? So what I decided to do was to go into bold and the sections that mean the most. What I read you from Matthew Arnold's Rugby Chapel at the beginning of the show, that's in bold. You know what I mean? That section is in bold. There are a lot of things that are in bold. Every poem that's not mine has a bold section to tell you kind of like James shows up to this poem.

[00:11:42] He reads the poem for his enjoyment. But then there's a section in there that is fundamentally like a guiding light in my life. You know what I mean? Like these sections that are bold in this book of these Victorian age poets are, they're guiding lights. You know, they really, they're things that I have used for my most of my life to gauge direction, to navigate as a man, to be able to say like, am I going in the right direction?

[00:12:12] Okay. Am I, what am I being weak about? What am I being too strong about? All these things. They're bold in here. So I was going to read you one. We're not going to do a long and drawn out poetry show. We're not going to talk about prepping at all today. It's going to be a short surviving America. It really is a day to take a break from all the chaos of the world and debut the new book, which will be out Father's Day.

[00:12:40] So if you're into it, even if you're not into it, I think it's well worth getting into it. You know what I mean? It's well worth, it's well worth exploring this because this is a man's thing. This is a dark part of history that you have to understand, but like women weren't reading until the 18th century at best, at best.

[00:13:08] You know what I mean? Like, I mean, in mass, it just wasn't a priority back then. You know what I mean? It wasn't that that's the reality of it. It's dark. It's crazy to wrap your head around. It's insane that you'd have to bring a letter to your husband and be like, what the hell does this say? You know what I mean? But that was that was the situation. And the reason I bring that up is to say. Right. All through the mid middle ages.

[00:13:32] Now, not many people were reading period in the middle ages, but all through most of the Victorian age, the consumers of poetry and literature were men.

[00:13:42] So it boggles my mind. Right. That we wind up in a situation where here we are in this day and age where literature, new books, I feel like men read like newish books with with new age ideas and, you know, that kind of stuff. Modern political books, modern, you know, lifestyle books and stuff like that. But but literature and poetry.

[00:14:10] That was a man's game for a long, long time, you know, so I'm always blown away by why why we decided let's shoo that away. Right. Let's shoo that away out of our life. No, that's not. You know what I mean? That's not masculine enough. And what I found over, you know, half a quarter of a lifetime ish, something like that, reading these poems and buying expanded poetry collections on some of the authors in this book.

[00:14:43] Is that if we do exist in an isolated world for men and really it's an isolated world for most people, but in in this sense, we're talking about men's issues. If we exist in a world of isolated men, what these poems do is I think they really fundamentally remind you, like. What you're thinking is what I'm thinking, what you're dealing with is what I'm dealing with.

[00:15:10] And more importantly than that, it's what men throughout history have dealt with and struggled with. That's the best I can do. You know what I mean? Is is deliver that. Deliver that sort of sense of community and not community, but like legacy, even like your depression is a legacy. You're welcome. You know what I mean? Your struggle with women, a legacy. Right. It's it's just we've been at it for so long.

[00:15:40] We've been doing the same things for so long that there's no reason to think. Right. That. I know. Jorade and I'm a vampire today, Jorade. Jorade says, is it just me or does James look sick? Now, you might be right. You might be right. You might actually be telling the future because I do have a sick kid upstairs.

[00:16:04] What it is, is the lighting plus the hood plus no sun outside because it's actually gloomy, rainy day is turned to me vampiric in appearance. Yeah, that's really what it is. But that's why I'm staying small. The lighting's all fuked up. So it is what it is. But I'm going to read you one and then we'll probably call it the day. It's going to be a short day here today. All right.

[00:16:34] But I thought I would pull so I was going to pull something completely different. And then I said, if we're talking about Father's Day release, which is June 15th, there will be a preorder for the e-book and all that kind of stuff probably next week, beginning next week. But if we're going to talk about Father's Day release, I pulled one that was more touchy feely. My favorites are the like hyper touchy feely nature driven sort of poems.

[00:17:03] But I said, if we are going to do a poem out of the book written by me today, poems for men, we probably should do one that's a little more manual, manly and masculine. Right. In its sense. And, you know, there's a sacrificial kind of element to fatherhood and even manhood. That's really like, you know, it's bordering like kind of whiny. Do you know what I mean? It's bordering almost whiny.

[00:17:34] Right. Like you get on social media and you see things that are like there's legitimacy to the struggles of men. Look, I don't think anybody's got it harder than women. That's my personal view. I really think that being a woman like if you look at the full duration of life with all the things that women have to put up with, deal with. I do think it's probably a much harder go. But again, I'm a dude. I have to write from this perspective. And I know that men are struggling.

[00:17:59] I know that the statistics on suicide and things like that, particularly in young men, are unbelievable. Unbelievable. On the cover of the book there, suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst men 15 to 24. Second leading cause of death. It's wild. So anyway, I thought we'd do something that sort of lends itself to, I don't know, to the opposite of that. Right. Right. It's a poem called A Father's Rewards.

[00:18:30] Short. Easy. Nothing too dynamic. Crazy. Right. But for many years, it's been a question of mine. Like, you know, what are the true rewards of being a man in the modern age? What are the real, real, not monetary? You know what I mean? Not like I made a bunch of money this week. Oh, fuck. I got rewards. Like, what are the real rewards? And these are all pulled from my life. These are all moments of my life where I went like, I made the right choices.

[00:19:00] Do you know what I mean? So, A Father's Rewards. Wood crackling in the hearth. Heat radiating into the home. A child of eight wrapped snug in his bed. December winds can only peek through the window. Her head on your chest. Her eyes meeting yours. A pantry of options.

[00:19:30] Slices of warm meat. Good cheese on a plate. A peaceful morning. Coffee as black as new moon midnight. Her fingers through your hair. Her assuring words. Her dreams taking shape. Her safety. A boy becoming a man. A boy becoming himself.

[00:19:56] Seeing the best pieces of you and her within him. A father's rewards. So, they're not all like that. But that one, I think, resonates the most with men. I think that's, or at least, in what we're talking about in today's podcast. You know what I mean? Because I know a lot of people out there kind of suffering, struggling.

[00:20:26] Through just normal life. You know what I mean? Well, you know, it's not without challenge. It's crazy out here. It's absolutely crazy. I mean, we are at like, I was watching hockey last night with my wife. And the sports betting apps. Commercials. Just like one after another. Every break. Every. And I just started thinking to myself, like, how could there, is there, there's never been a time of temptation like now. Right? Never. For men.

[00:20:56] Probably for women either. But I'm just saying, from a man's point of view, there's never been a time of temptation like now. Right? You've got the drugs everywhere. Booze everywhere. Sex everywhere. Betting and gambling everywhere. Like, it's, it's crazy. And every day you wake up, that's riding on your back. You know? That's part of the game now. And you just have to pretend like it's normal. Oh, this is fine. This is all normal.

[00:21:25] This is just like it was all those years ago. Right? So there are some standout things. But the guiding principles, you know, sort of what makes life great and all of what we're really fighting for, what we battle through all that temptation for and avoid all that for, largely hasn't changed. You know? So I'm going to give you the, sort of the breakdown of the book.

[00:21:54] And then we'll call it a day. So the, the book itself opens up with an entire section on manhood. Poems built around manhood. Then we roll into an entire section on fatherhood. Poems built on this concept. And like I said, some of them are mine. Some of them aren't. Actually, in fatherhood, I think they are all mine.

[00:22:20] Yeah, fatherhood was a, there's some bangers in fatherhood. I'll tell you that much. Even a Halloween poem of all things called 13. Hard times or good and evil might be. No, it's not my favorite section. It's the realist section. This is a section that kind of expands outside of the manhood, fatherhood thing. You know what I mean? It gets kind of bigger. Like there's a poem called a pricey date. And that's a real good one.

[00:22:50] Big section titled women, right? Big section titled women. Of course, you can't have man without woman. And then the final section is called seeing and experiencing life. That's probably my favorite. Or at least there's some of my favorites in there. The tonic of the wilderness is the subtitle. A lot of stuff about nature. A lot of stuff about, you know, the world outside of our four walls.

[00:23:17] An old, old, old poem I used to read online called A Run Through Tired Woods is in there. This is the book, guys. This is what it is. You know, I do think it is the Father's Day gift that fathers don't realize they need. And I think they can settle down into some of these great writings from poets past and maybe even fall in love with some of my own work. Because it's all from this standpoint. You know what I mean?

[00:23:46] It's all from the standpoint of some dude, some dad. Do you know what I mean? But I thought I'd give you a 20-minute break. What up, Jake the Snake? Sorry, I haven't been paying much attention to chat. I thought I'd give you guys a 20-minute break from Putin and Trump and war and Israel and Gaza and who's mad at Israel now? UK, Canada, Qatar. What, you know?

[00:24:17] The economy and tariffs and this and that. Like, this is what I've used poetry for in my life. Always. Always. Always as, you know what? Saturday afternoon. Maybe I worked around the house all Saturday morning. Made breakfast. Got lunch done. Whatever the situation is, right? Yard work. Whatever kind of shit. And that's a brilliant idea, Firewolf Forge. Brilliant idea. I should definitely do that.

[00:24:45] Firewolf Forge in chat asks, are you going to do an audio book yourself? Yeah, I have to. Now that you said it, I have to. That's an essential. Hmm. As if I didn't have enough crammed in right before vacation, which also happens on Father's Day. But we'll make it happen. We can make it happen. Maybe. I don't know. That's a lot. 50 pages of poetry, I think, I have thus far. I don't know what it is, actually.

[00:25:16] And I'm talking, not even layout. Like, not laid out. Just, yeah. Anyhow. That would be kind of fun, though. That might have to come later. That might have to be released on July 4th. Something like that. Something fun. I only release books on fun dates now. This is my, if I'm in control of the release date, if I'm going to commit to self-publishing and all that, I'm only going to release them on fun dates. My birthday, kid's birth, whatever it is. You know what I mean? Have fun. Life is short. You will die. No doubt about it. Right?

[00:25:45] So while you're here, you better enjoy it. You better have fun. Poems for Men is not going to make the New York Times bestseller list. You know what I mean? It's not one of those things. I don't even know if a guy like me can get on the New York Times bestseller list. I know some can. Right? Some guys have big, gigantic audiences. They can't be denied, even though they, like, sneer at them anyway. But anyhow, I thought I'd give you a break.

[00:26:11] There's a lot more to it than just negative suck headlines and likes and follows and subscribes and all this and that and the other thing. So that's it for me, folks. Surviving America episode 35. Whew. Time flies when you're having fun. That's all I can tell you. Patriot Power I was on last night. Phenomenal show. I'm going to be digging into some new stuff over these next few days.

[00:26:39] I'm going to try to get it onto both platforms. You know what? We'll put these items into the inside the cache for the podcast. That's a good idea. But I think there's some stuff that warrants some members reviews also. Some family gear reviews. I've got stuff piling up. There's a lot going on. It's all good news for you guys. All fundamentally good news for you guys. Okay?

[00:27:08] So, all that said, support our great sponsors. Lima Tango Survival. All your survival kit needs. The Prepper's Medical Handbook. Everybody. Another book for Dad. Let me get Dad a cool book. The Prepper's Medical Handbook on Amazon, too. And, of course, food storage. PackFreshUSA.com. The best in the Mylar making biz made in America. They're the place that I use. They're the place that you should use.

[00:27:37] You should be doing DIY food storage. It's the best value for the money. And we've got a great guest coming up on the cooking side of things, too. You probably know her. Once I get a verification, I'll let you know more. But, yeah. It's good, man. The Prepper Broadcasting Network is a beautiful little thing. I'll tell you the truth. Talk to you guys soon, all right? I hope you enjoyed the show. And Father's Day gift. Okay?

[00:28:07] Poems for Men. Spread the word. Tell the world. I'll get you a link soon. Probably next week the preorder will be up. If you want the cover image, I can get you that, too. If you want to spread the word for me that way. It all helps because, well, I don't know. Yeah, I guess it all helps for other reasons. This book being written and created with this beautiful cover, foot in the truly is all I need.

[00:28:35] It tickles my creative fancy enough it wouldn't even matter if I didn't sell a copy. You know what I mean? Because it's just all out there. It exists. I'll hold it in my hand and say, oh, my God, look at this culmination of life over, well, since, like I said, eighth grade. This is a project that began in eighth grade, and that's crazy. It's only really come to life because of you guys. Otherwise, it would just be a personal little thing, and I wouldn't have the gumption to put it together.

[00:29:05] But because I have an audience, people who care, you know, you make my dreams come true. All right? Thank you. Talk to you guys soon. See you.