"In the end I decided that the only way I could defeat the manosphere was to double down on men’s retreats. "

"And so I became a guru. Well, technically, not quite a guru. More a gur-ette. I started leading 'journalling' sessions at Both Sides weekends. It’s a process that I picked up from novel writing and involves uninterrupted scribbling, stream of consciousness-style, every morning for 20 minutes in an attempt to liberate hidden ideas from the quirkier corners of the brain.... I kick off the session with The Song of Wandering Aengus because the forest location seems appropriate and because the image of Yeats heading off to wrestle with a 'fire' in his head seems very men’s retreat. That’s why many of them come.... How can you influence the wider world from a woody enclave in Cornwall?"

Writes Kevin Maher, in "Yoga pants, man bun, crying. I’ve become a men’s guru/He once mocked male bonding weekends as hippy nonsense. Now Kevin Maher leads them" (London Times).

I can't speak about male bonding weekends, but I just wanted to express my great admiration for that particular poem, which made a great impression on me when I was young, half a century ago:

The Song of Wandering Aengus

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.