Good poetry allows us to see into the soul of another person. Great poetry allows us to see into our own.

Over the course of its lifetime, the Fat Tony’s Discord server received thousands of posts in it’s Anti-library channel. In the first of series of articles, I’m going to group the best of these book recommendations by genre and present them here for posterity. This month, poetry.

Good poetry allows us to see into the soul of another person. Great poetry allows us to see into our own soul. It offers us a rare, soothing glimpse of ways of thinking about the world outside of our conventional experience. Like all great art forms, it is both therapeutic for reader and listener, and can be a soothing antidote against the stress of modernity.

To help calm your soul, Here are five of the best Fat Tony recommendations…

Summoned by Bells

What is it?

Summoned by Bells, the blank verse autobiography by John Betjeman is split into nine chapters, and describes the author’s life from his early memories of a middle-class home in Edwardian Hampstead, London, to his premature departure from Magdalen College, Oxford. The book ends in disaster, with Betjeman sent down from Oxford and enrolling in desperation as a cricket master at a private prep school. When asked why the biography only covers his younger years, Betjeman famously replied “I think people’s lives are interesting only up until they’re 21”.

Why should I read it?

Themes of memory, a yearning for the lost recent past, and self reflection on events (both fair and unfair), and episodes of failure that make us who we are. Summoned by Bells is full of nostalgia; the good kind. Betjeman’s verse simply feels soothing to read — like being wrapped in a warm blanket. Commentary on an Edwardian privileged childhood, with an Oxford setting partway through — If you are a fan of Brideshead Revisited, you will love this.

Notable Poem

The whole book is written in blank verse, as one piece. A particular favourite excerpt, lamenting a father’s hopes that his son will carry on the family firm:

To all my father’s hopes. In later years, Now old and ill, he asked me once again To carry on the firm, I still refused. And now when I behold, fresh-published, new, A further volume of my verse, I see His kind grey eyes look woundedly at mine, I see his workmen seeking other jobs, And that red granite obelisk that marks The family grave in Highgate cemetery Points an accusing finger to the sky.

Five Tang Poets

What is it?

A collection of poetry from five of the great poets of the T’ang dynasty (eighth and ninth centuries A.D.) are represented in this collection: Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Li Ho, and Li Shang-Yin. Each poet is introduced by the translator and represented by a curated selection that showcases the poet’s development and career.

Why should I read it?

The poems in this collection constitute some of the greatest lyric poems ever written. Obviously some context is lost in translation, BUT, the collection is still remarkable and introduces the reader to some of China’s greatest poets; it is considered a ‘classic’ in the field of translated Chinese poetry. The collection comprises of arguably the most ‘beautiful’ poetry on this list.

Not only are the poems hauntingly beautiful, but as an added bonus, the author’s introductions allow for greater understanding and offer a lot of helpful insight into each poet’s work.

Notable Poem

White Horse.

Zoom!

What is it?

His debut collection, Zoom!, appeared in 1989 when Simon Armitage was still in his mid-twenties. He was a parole officer at the time, and had taken up poetry as a hobby. His raw, northern style fit perfectly with the punk (alternative) period in which it was released. Simon displays breathtaking mastery of the medium for a debut poet, which took the literary world by storm upon its release.

The voice employed by Simon is edgy, uncompromising, and tackles issues as diverse as lost love, death, and violence. Simon doesn’t shy away from addressing disturbing topics, and his years working as a probation officer gave him plenty of contact with people down on their luck, or at the end of their tether.

Simon’s poetry is good. Very good. So good that he was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2019.

Why should I read it?

Firstly because it is a seminal work. Very few modern poets garner this much attention with their first collection; especially ones from unconventional backgrounds.

In length, this is a short, concise collection, however it is densely packed with a northern English vernacular; much of which you just don’t hear anymore, and perfectly captures the time and place in which it was written. Anglophiles will enjoy picking apart (and discovering) the rich, delicious use of colloquialisms employed throughout.

Notable Poem

Zoom! — self-titled and the last in the collection, is especially memorable for its dizzying pace and scope. The free verse poem takes the reader on a journey from a house on a typical, British street, across the universe, through a black hole, and back again, all the while questioning the scope of our knowledge, and our place in the world.

A Glass Half Full

What is it?

Felix Denis built a publishing empire, starting in the 1960’s and 70’s, when he was put on trial for his involvement in OZ magazine, an underground magazine started in London. After acquittal, and a bit of luck with Kung Fu magazines in the 1970’s, Felix went on to build a publishing empire, and was valued at $750m before his death in 2014.

However, Felix was not your conventional entrepreneur. Known for his extreme lifestyle (he was once quoted as saying that he had spent £120m on crack cocaine and hookers throughout his life), Felix lived his life like a debauched Roman emperor. He had mansions and harems scattered across the world. The stories about him are legion, and have now passed into legend.

A serious illness in 1999 saw him bedridden in hospital, and it was during this time he started writing poetry. It quickly turned into an obsession, taking over his life.

A Glass Half Full is Felix’s first published collection of poetry, released in 2004.

Why should I read it?

Raw, witty, and unexpectedly moving. Felix’s poetry is unpretentious and easy to read, being written almost entirely in contemporary free verse.

The collection is a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the 20th century’s most notorious entrepreneurs.

Notable Poem

The Better Man is the stand-out poem in this collection; an elegy to a dear friend (or should that be rival). The poem is moving in its juxtaposition of anger, regret, and respect. You can watch a video of Felix reciting this poem at his Ted talk, here.

100 Love Sonnets

What is it?

Pablo Neruda needs no introduction. The Chilean Poet-Diplomat won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, This collection was first published first in 1959 in Spanish. The poems are dedicated to his third wife Matilde Urrutia. In the book poems are kept in four sections — Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night.

Why should I read it?

The most structured of the entries on this list, this collection of poetry is written in strict sonnet format. Romantics, and fans of Shakespeare will immediately take to it. Constraints are a well spring for creativity, in this case giving rise to exquisite poetry…

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

Notable Poem

“If you forget me” is a masterpiece. Trust us, this poem hits hard. Have tissues at the ready.

Navigating modernity can be tough. Luckily philosophers, poets, and great thinkers over the centuries has developed a number of mental shortcuts, in the form of heuristics, razors, guillotines, and other aphorisms. We’ve collected the most important ones here in a ‘cheat sheet’ of sorts. Memorize these, and you may never look at the world in the same way again…

Alder’s Razor

If something cannot be settled by experiment or observation, then it is not worthy of debate.

Chesterton’s Fence

Reforms should not be made until the reasons behind the existing state of affairs is understood.

Duck Test

The duck test is a form of abductive reasoning, usually expressed as “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

Grice’s razor (also known as Giume’s razor)

As a principle of parsimony, conversational implications are to be preferred over semantic context for linguistic explanations. AKA Address what the speaker actually meant, instead of addressing the literal meaning of what they actually said

Hanlon’s Razor

Never Attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Hitchen’s Razor

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

Hobson’s Choice

A free choice where only one choice is offered

Hume’s Guillotine

If the cause, assigned for any effect, be not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause or add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the effect.

Occam’s Razor

When confronted with competing explanations, often the explanation with the fewest assumptions is the correct explanation.

Maslow’s Hammer

To treat everything as if it were a nail, If the only tool you have is a hammer.

Popper’s Falsifiability Principle

For a theory to be considered scientific, it must be falsifiable.

Sagan Standard

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Shirky Principle

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.

Working from home sucks for a lot of people. Conversely, people are in no rush to return to long commutes to soulless city centres offices. A decentralised network of micro-hubs would allow people to work locally, inject accountability into communities and help regenerate the high-street. Micro-hubs are the future of office working.

What the hell is a micro-hub?

I propose the micro-hub as a small office (6–30 people), located in a suburban or commuter area, ideally on a local high-street. For larger corporations, a network of these hubs would be spread across large parts of the country. Micro-hubs are the corporate HQ reimagined; fractal, distributed, and local.

For some types of business (banking, retail), the infrastructure is already in place — micro-hubs could be incorporated into existing branches and stores, removing the need for a corporate HQ. For smaller companies, desk space at micro-hubs could be rented out, depending on need.

This is not a new idea

The 20th century saw a trend from localism to globalism. Beside the material benefits globalisation bought, it also exposed us to a new category of risk. Our drive towards centralisation and interconnectedness has led us to wider, systemic, cascade failures, of which Covid-19 is an example.

It’s easy to forget that centralised commerce was not the norm for most of human history, and is in fact a recent phenomenon. The modern, open plan office would appear as a form of collective madness to anyone born before 1900. Before this time, it was the norm that legal, insurance, advertising, journalism, and other white collar professions were smaller local offices. I see a shift from globalism back to localism, driven by advances in telecommunications, 3d printing, and other technologies.

Moving corporations from HQs to micro-hubs presents a large upside for both employees and organisations. Lifestyle changes for most people as they age. It’s not uncommon for younger people to seek a dynamic, big city lifestyle, whilst retreating into the suburbs, market towns, or further afield as they get older.

People are often held hostage to big cities longer than they would like due to work. A network of micro-hubs at a regional or national level would allow people the flexibility to change lifestyle, without having to worry about finding a new job. It would also boost employee retention.

From a recruitment perspective, employers would no longer be bound by geography. Micro-hubs would allow a much wider candidate pool, resulting in a more competitive and higher overall standard of candidate.

Customer service would improve also, but perhaps not in the way people think. There is often a disconnect between corporate, and employees who work on the ‘shop floor’. It creates a parallel universe for those in corporate, where eccentric jargon and woke-ism reign supreme. I see a future where I can walk into my local Greggs and order a vegan sausage roll knowing a slither of corporate management is working in the back office. An office environment where they have skin in the game with regards to the local community, and are exposed to receiving a good bollocking from irate customers, rather than powerless souls that are often used as customer service cannon-fodder.

Forget big corporations paying low taxes as a source of evil. They do far more damage in the way they destroy local communities. A localist approach is a fair and equitable approach. In a decentralised workplace, people can still get personal tasks done (e.g. dropping off kids at school). It can also help rejuvenate local high streets and bring familiar faces back into the community — a place to live AND work. A workplace that fosters a sense of community and accountability at a local level.

Learning lessons from Al-Qaeda

Large offices don’t scale. Here we can learn a lesson from Al-Qaeda. The terrorist group operates as a collection of cells, distributed geographically, with no distinct specialisation between them. This clandestine cell system has made it notoriously difficult to eliminate them — you cannot cut the head off of the proverbial snake. It is a great irony that the key preventing another 9/11 may be for organisations to mimic the structure of Al-Qeada.

Not only are decentralised office environments robust to terrorist attacks, they are also robust to power failures, water leaks, earthquakes, traffic jams, protests, riots, and a whole host of other ‘long tail’ effects that are catastrophic to corporate headquarters. From a business continuity point of view, micro-hubs make sense.

Final Thoughts

Maybe one day micro-hubs will all become a reality — it’s certainly something I would like companies to experiment with. We need to be brave to try it though, otherwise I fear a future of working from the dining table, or even worse, a lazy return to the failure of the open plan office.