It’s my pleasure today to welcome Jamie Woods ro drop in to reflect on a poem from his pamphlet, Rebel Blood Cells (Punk Dust Poetry, 2023).

This is a poem about me – the poetic I is also the actual I in this poem – listening to a particular songbyone of my favourite bands. It’s my thoughts on the song itself, and what it meant to me in 2019 when I listened to it and had a moment of clarity. I wrote it for myself, not publication, but when I decided to share some of my work, this was included. There’s a lot more to it than that, obviously…

Firstly the song I was listening to. William’s Last Words is the final track on the Manic Street Preachers 2009 album Journal for Plague Lovers and is sung not by James Dean Bradfield – lead singer, huge rasping soul voice –…