Skip to main content
Human Voices Wake Us

Human Voices Wake Us

By Human Voices Wake Us

The poem says, "Human voices wake us, and we drown." But I’ve made this podcast with the belief that human voices are what we need. And so, whether from a year or three thousand years ago, whether poetry or prose, whether fiction or diary or biography, here are the best things we have ever thought, written, or said.
Available on
Apple Podcasts Logo
Google Podcasts Logo
Overcast Logo
Pocket Casts Logo
RadioPublic Logo
Spotify Logo
Currently playing episode

Van Gogh's Early Years

Human Voices Wake UsDec 07, 2022

00:00
53:29
Ted Hughes: 11 Poems from "Remains of Elmet" (new episode)

Ted Hughes: 11 Poems from "Remains of Elmet" (new episode)

An episode from 3/15/24: Tonight, I read eleven poems from Ted Hughes's 1979 collection, Remains of Elmet. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from Remains of Elmet are:

  • Light Falls through Itself
  • Crown Point Pensioners
  • "Six years into her posthumous life"
  • These Grasses of Light
  • Walls
  • Heather
  • Remains of Elmet
  • Where the Millstone of Sky
  • The Ancient Briton Lay under His Rock
  • Heptonstall
  • Cock Crows (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here)

This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in April of 2021, which included only seven poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bates's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection.

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Mar 14, 202445:06
Anthology: Visionary Poems from Yeats, Whitman, Blake & Myth (new episode)

Anthology: Visionary Poems from Yeats, Whitman, Blake & Myth (new episode)

An episode from 3/3/24: Tonight, I read from a handful of what I call “visionary” poems. After an introductory section of familiar nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets, I go back to the sources of those, which are found in religious scripture and myth:

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Mar 03, 202401:11:06
Wallace Stevens: 11 Essential Poems

Wallace Stevens: 11 Essential Poems

An episode from 2/19/24: Tonight, I read eleven essential poems by the American poet Wallace Stevens (1879-1955). All of them can be found in his Collected Poems. I also read from his letters, and the essay about Stevens at The Poetry Foundation. The poems are:

  • Anecdote of the Jar
  • The Snow Man
  • Six Significant Landscapes
  • Anecdote of Men by the Thousand
  • How to Live. What to Do
  • Gallant Château
  • Bouquet of Belle Scavoir
  • The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain
  • The Planet on the Table
  • Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
  • The Idea of Order at Key West (read by Stevens)

The biographies of Stevens that I mention are the two-volumes by Joan Richardson, and The Whole of Harmonium, by Paul Mariani. The 1988 documentary on Stevens, part of the Voices and Visions series, is also a great introduction.

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Feb 20, 202401:02:13
Ted Hughes: 6 Poems from "River"

Ted Hughes: 6 Poems from "River"

An episode from 2/7/24: Tonight, I read six poems from Ted Hughes's 1983 collection, River. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from River are:

  • October Salmon (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here)
  • Four March Watercolours
  • Salmon Eggs
  • An August Salmon
  • The River
  • In the Dark Violin of the Valley

This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in September of 2021, which included only three poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bates's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection.

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Feb 08, 202443:11
Anthology: Poems on Being a Parent

Anthology: Poems on Being a Parent

An episode from 1/31/24: Tonight, as a companion to last episode of poems on being a child, I read a handful of poems about being a parent:

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Feb 01, 202442:27
Anthology: Poems About Childhood & Youth

Anthology: Poems About Childhood & Youth

An episode from 1/19/24: Tonight, I read a handful of poems about childhood. How does poetry capture our earliest memories, and how can it express the act of remembering itself, of nostalgia? The poems are:

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jan 20, 202443:58
Ted Hughes: 7 Poems from "Moortown Diary"

Ted Hughes: 7 Poems from "Moortown Diary"

An episode from 1/10/24: Tonight, I read seven poems from Ted Hughes's collection of farming poems, Moortown Diary, first published in 1978. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from Moortown Diary are:

  • Rain
  • Bringing in new couples
  • Surprise
  • Ravens
  • February 17th
  • Birth of Rainbow
  • A monument

This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in January of 2021, which included only five poems. I've used the opportunity to read from Hughes's preface and notes to the book, as well as a letter written to his friend, Keith Sagar about the collection. I also include audio of Hughes from the BBC/British Library recordings collected as The Spoken Word: Ted Hughes, Poems and Short Stories.

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jan 11, 202441:46
The Sound of Beethoven

The Sound of Beethoven

An episode from 1/1/24: Tonight, a cold has forced me to hand over the episode almost entirely to some of the greatest music ever written. Here are excerpts of my favorite pieces from Ludwig van Beethoven (1750-1827). It’s hard to think of music that is more passionate, introspective, uplifting, brooding, mournful, and joyous. The sources for the music I use are:

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jan 01, 202401:01:31
Britain: September 3, 1939

Britain: September 3, 1939

An episode from 12/21/23: What is it like for your country to declare war, and then wait for it, and then live through it? Tonight, I read only a small sampling from Norman Longmate's How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War.

The book focuses on the home front in Britain and the experiences, mostly, of everyday civilians, the elderly, women, and children: How do you live through the Blitz? How do parents say goodbye to their children, millions of whom were relocated from urbans areas to the countryside, to protect them from attack? How do you eat when food is rationed, what kind of social life is possible, and was the BBC allowed to be funny (spoiler alert: yes)?

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Dec 22, 202341:14
The new movie "Maestro," & what happens to our earliest dreams
Dec 14, 202333:24
Little Biographies
Dec 07, 202335:30
The Most Brutal Scenes

The Most Brutal Scenes

An episode from 11/29/23: Tonight, I share two stories from the Shoah, or Holocaust.

The first is about the Sonderkommando, those prisoners forced to do the most devastating work in the concentration camps. During a 2015 Fresh Air interview with László Nemes and Géza Röhrig about their 2015 film, Son of Saul, a brief story about an actual Sonderkommando member is told. It remains one of the most overwhelming minutes that I have ever heard.

In the second part, I read from Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2006 book, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. The book is Mendelsohn’s attempt to discover what happened to six members of his family who were murdered in the Holocaust, and the section I read from is about the difficulty of truly entering the mind and situation of a sixteen year-old girl, who is rounded up with a thousand other Jews, and murdered.

You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. You can also leave a review at iTunes.

Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Nov 30, 202330:03
Patti Smith / Mazzy Star & Living Colour / Philip Glass

Patti Smith / Mazzy Star & Living Colour / Philip Glass

An episode from 11/13/23: Tonight, I talk about our attachment to music as teenagers and adults, and the lessons that loving music—and finding meaning in musicians’ life stories—can teach us.

First, I read two passages from Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids. Those parts on her early life with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, before either of them were well-known, are incredibly moving. Next, I talk about my attachment to the band Mazzy Star, and then read from a listener’s email about seeing the band Living Colour perform live for the first time, after years of listening to their music. Finally, I read a few passages from Words Without Music, a memoir by the composer Philip Glass.

If you have a story of your own to share about art, creativity, religion or myth, email me about it and it could appear in an upcoming episode.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Nov 13, 202350:37
Anthology: Poems for Autumn
Oct 30, 202337:43
Shakespeare: The Life & Times

Shakespeare: The Life & Times

An episode from 10/16/23: Tonight, I read my long poem about William Shakespeare, and offer a commentary along the way. It is being published simultaneously at Bryan Helton’s The Basilisk Tree, and once again I give Bryan my infinite thanks.

This will be the third long poem of mine that he has published this year to coincide with an episode of Human Voices Wake Us – the other two are on Leonardo da Vinci and Pythagoras. Please take the time to check out the rest of The Basilisk Tree, or to even submit your own poetry.

While introducing my Shakespeare poem, I mention that it was in part inspired by an episode I did here on the (real or fictional) love life of Walt Whitman. You can listen to that episode here.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Oct 16, 202301:10:44
Anthology: Poetry Friday with The Great Year, Shakespeare, Eliot, Blake, Poems on Work & Poems on Mythology

Anthology: Poetry Friday with The Great Year, Shakespeare, Eliot, Blake, Poems on Work & Poems on Mythology

An episode from 9/15/23: Earlier this year, I thought it was possible to supplement this podcast with one weekly (and shorter) additional reading over at Substack; for many reasons, that ambition proved impossible to maintain. Since an illness has kept me from recording a new episode this week, I thought it worthwhile collecting those six weeks of shorter readings here:

  • 3 Poems from my long work-in-progress, The Great Year: “The Autumn Village,” “I was in Iceland centuries ago, ” “Smith Looks Up the Long Road”
  • Two readings from Shakespeare: “Of comfort no man speak” (Richard II, act II scene 2), “All the world’s a stage” (As You Like It, act II scene 7)
  • 3 Poems on Work: Philip Levine (1928-2015): “Among Children,” Elma Mitchell (1919-2000), “Thoughts After Ruskin," Mary Robinson (1758-1800), “A London Summer Morning”
  • Favorites from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets
  • Three Poets & Mythology: Eavan Boland (1944-2020), “The Making of an Irish Goddess," Michael Longley (b. 1939) “The Butchers," Robert Pinsky (b. 1940), “The Figured Wheel”
  • Blake & His Animals: Three passages from William Blake (1757-1827): one from Visions of the Daughters of Albion and the last two from Milton. I hope that plucking these three passages from his longer work can suggest how varied—not just how prophetic and opaque, but simply beautiful—so much of his poetry can be.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Sep 15, 202301:36:44
Caravaggio's Severed Heads / Herodotus Among the Scythians / Ian McKellen on Macbeth

Caravaggio's Severed Heads / Herodotus Among the Scythians / Ian McKellen on Macbeth

An episode from 9/8/23: In the first part of tonight's episode, I read from Peter Robb's M, a biography of the painter Caravaggio (1571-1610). Through a discussion of two of his paintings which depict decapitation, we can understand how, in Caravaggio's early career, he was able to paint directly from life; but when he went on the run to escape a charge of murder, he depended instead upon his memory.

In the second part, I read from the father of history, Herodotus (c. 484-c. 425 BCE), and his description of royal the burial rites of the "barbarian" Scythians, who lived in the area of the Black Sea. The translation and essays I read are from the Landmark Herodotus, edited by Robert B. Strassler.

In the last part, I play a section of a talk given by Ian McKellen on the "Tomorrow and tomorrow" speech from Macbeth. You can find the clip on YouTube here.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Sep 08, 202301:04:12
Raising a Musical Prodigy / God's Response to Job

Raising a Musical Prodigy / God's Response to Job

An episode from 9/1/23: In the first part of tonight’s episode, I read from Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, & the Search for Identity, where Solomon talks about musical prodigies and the difficulties they face as children and adults.

In the second part, I read one of the most powerful pieces of poetry to come out of the ancient world, God’s response to Job, from the Hebrew Bible. Nowhere else is the terror and mystery of human suffering more deeply expressed, and God’s response to it remains a confounding and sublime performance. The translation is by Raymond Scheindlin.  

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Sep 01, 202356:40
Seamus Heaney: 10 Essential Poems

Seamus Heaney: 10 Essential Poems

An episode from 8/25/23: Tonight, I read ten essential poems from one of the great and most public poets of the last seventy years, Seamus Heaney (1939-2013). It isn’t hard to come by details of Heaney’s life, but Stepping Stones (where Heaney is interviewed at length in what amounts to an autobiography), is a good place to start. His poems are collected in 100 Poems, and in the individual collections.

There are many ways to look at Heaney’s work, and the ten poems I choose only present one picture: a poet as at home on the farm as he was at Harvard; as interested in literary history as in archaeology and the deep interior of the Irish imagination; as concerned with childhood, memory, and family as with the darkest aspects of human life. In introducing these poems, I reflect on Heaney’s importance in my own life, and the huge impact his death had on me, ten years ago this month.

The poems I read are:  

  • Personal Helicon (Death of a Naturalist, 1966)
  • The Forge and Bogland (Door into the Dark, 1969)
  • The Tollund Man (Wintering Out, 1972)
  • The Strand at Lough Beg (Field Work, 1979)
  • Squarings #2, #8, #40 (Seeing Things, 1991)
  • from his translations of Beowulf (1999)
  • Uncoupled (Human Chain, 2010)  

The episode ends with Heaney's reading of "The Tollund Man."

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Aug 25, 202301:08:53
Psalm 23 / Mary, Queen of Scots is Executed / 3 Poems by Mary Oliver

Psalm 23 / Mary, Queen of Scots is Executed / 3 Poems by Mary Oliver

An episode from 8/18/23: What makes a story or prayer or poem last? What circumstances can lead one monarch to order the execution of another? And why, over the past twenty years, was Mary Oliver the best-selling poet in America? Tonight's episode is another three-parter:

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.


Aug 18, 202353:17
Shakespeare's Library / Ancient Egypt's Temple Libraries / Seamus Heaney Goes to School

Shakespeare's Library / Ancient Egypt's Temple Libraries / Seamus Heaney Goes to School

An episode from 8/11/23: Tonight, we look into libraries and learning:

  • In the first part, I read from Jonathan Bate’s biography of Shakespeare, Soul of the Age. Based on Shakespeare’s education and the evidence of the plays, Bate gives a thorough guess as to the essential twenty or thirty books that the Bard might have had on his shelf.
  • In the second part, I read from Serge Sauneron’s Priests of Ancient Egypt. Here, Sauneron talks about the libraries—called “Houses of Life”—attached to Egyptian temples, as well as the scribal and priestly culture that produced Egypt’s various religious texts.
  • Finally, I read the poem “Alphabets,” by Seamus Heaney, from his 1987 book, The Haw Lantern. I also read my favorite poem of Heaney’s, Squarings #2, from 1991’s Seeing Things. Both poems combined Heaney’s earliest memories of education with those of manual labor, measuring, and building.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Aug 11, 202348:54
Cities Under Siege: The Gauls Sack Rome / Occupied Paris / William Blake's London

Cities Under Siege: The Gauls Sack Rome / Occupied Paris / William Blake's London

An episode from 8/4/23: Tonight, we hear from cities under siege:

The music I play in the introduction, from Ludwig Goranson’s score to the movie Oppenheimer, can be found here.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Aug 04, 202348:12
Bruce Springsteen / Simon Schama / The Iliad

Bruce Springsteen / Simon Schama / The Iliad

An episode from 7/28/23: Tonight's episode looks in on history, creativity, and mourning from three different angles:

In the first part, we hear scattered remarks from Bruce Springsteen over the years, about his low-fi and haunting 1982 album, Nebraska. It is remarkable how the album was made by Springsteen, alone in his bedroom, with a cheap recorder. For someone who bridges and so seamlessly combines music of the fifties, sixties and seventies, Nebraska sounds nearly timeless.

In the second part, I read a small section from Simon Schama's 1995 book, Landscape and Memory. Here, he talks about not just his own Jewish ancestry, who hailed from the woods and forests of Ruthenia (on the border between today's Poland and Lithuania), but also about the fate of one Polish village's Jewish population, during and following World War Two.

In the third part, I read from book 24 of Homer's Iliad, translated by Richmond Lattimore. In one of the most moving scenes anywhere in Homer's epics, Priam, the king of Troy, pays a visit to Achilles, the greatest warrior on the Greek side. Achilles has only recently killed Priam's son, Hector, in battle, and the old man comes to Achilles for beg for his son's body back, so that he can be given a proper funeral and burial.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Jul 28, 202344:38
First Person: Oppenheimer & the Bomb

First Person: Oppenheimer & the Bomb

An episode from 7/21/23: Tonight, I read a few dozen quotations from the scientists, politicians, and military figures who were instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb, and in the final decision to drop it on Japan in August of 1945. The most prominent voices here are those of Robert Oppenheimer and his fellow physicists, whose dedication and excitement to develop the bomb was matched only by their misgivings (though rarely their outright regret) in the years after World War Two.

While I previously dedicated four long episodes to the subject, I tried here to isolate the most vivid quotations, and the most difficult ideas, into one episode. The sources I drew on for this episode are:

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jul 21, 202350:24
Rachel Carson on the Deep History of the Sea

Rachel Carson on the Deep History of the Sea

An episode from 7/14/23: Tonight, I read from two great writers on the history of the sea. The first is an excerpt from Rachel Carson's (1907-1964) The Sea Around Us, on the deep history of the sea, and the beginnings of all life within it. Next is an excerpt from archaeologist Barry Cunliffe's Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples, where he illustrates all the strategies and passed-down knowledge—of winds, tides, currents, landmarks, marine life, etc.—that sailors in prehistoric Europe would have utilized to travel on the ocean.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us ⁠on Substack⁠, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: ⁠Notes from the Grid⁠, ⁠To the House of the Sun⁠, ⁠The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old⁠, and ⁠Bone Antler Stone⁠.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to ⁠humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com


Jul 14, 202342:46
American Shaman

American Shaman

An episode from 7/7/23: Tonight, I talk about writing my long poem, To the House of the Sun, published in 2015. The poem follows an Irish immigrant making his way through the American South, North and West, during the Civil War. The book is part travelogue, battle epic, and spiritual biography, and after describing how the book was written, I read one of my favorite sections from late in the poem, where the protagonist finds himself as a kind of shaman and religious figure, wandering the West.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jul 07, 202335:42
The Spiritual Significance of Everyday Work

The Spiritual Significance of Everyday Work

An episode from 6/30/23: Tonight, I read from three books that have been important lately in the writing of my long poem, The Great Year. First is the entry on Weaving from Taschen’s Book of Symbols; next, from Michael Pye’s The Edge of the World, is the story of the city of Domburg, in the Netherlands, and the tremendous archaeological finds that storms and the shifting North Sea have revealed there, over the centuries; and last, from Mircea Eliade’s Patterns in Comparative Religion, are a few remarks on the religious significance which farming once held, in premodern agricultural societies.

The question I ask, about the spiritual significance once given to what now appear to be straightforward, practical—and even machine-dominated—tasks, is to wonder what aspects of our everyday lives can be made sacred in the same way? Is this possible any more?

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jun 30, 202349:08
The Midsummer Fire Festivals of Old Europe
Jun 12, 202347:13
Pythagoras: The Life & Times

Pythagoras: The Life & Times

Tonight, I'm thrilled to read a poem that I began working on three years ago on the life, teachings, and mysticism of the Greek philosopher, Pythagoras (c. 570- c.495 BCE). I am also thrilled that the poem is being simultaneously published at The Basilisk Tree. Many thanks to its editor, Bryan Helton, for coordinating all of this with me.

For anyone who wants to look closer at the earliest Classical accounts of Pythagoras, his life, and his teachings, check out: The History of Greek Philosophy Volume 1: The Earlier Presocractics and the Pythagoreans, by W. K. C. Guthrie, and The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, ed. Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com

May 28, 202335:11
The Great Myths #23: Odin

The Great Myths #23: Odin

An episode from 5/15/23: What can the Poetic and Prose Eddas, the Icelandic sagas, and skaldic poetry tell us about the most important god in the Norse pantheon, Odin? Tonight, I devote an entire episode to Odin’s many masks: as poet and shaman, as god of death and war, and as the perfect embodiment of the world as the Norse knew it, filled with brutality and betrayal. The episode is divided into three sections:

  • (about 5:37) On Odin and poetry; a reading of the most famous stanzas from the Havamal, and the story of Odin’s theft of the Mead of Poetry
  • (about 58:07) On Odin and warfare, death
  • (about 1:22:06) What archeology, and classical and medieval historians, can tell us about Odin

The nonfiction books I rely on for most of this episode are E. O. G. Turville-Petre’s Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, Rudolf Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology, and John Lindow’s Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals & Beliefs.

The translations I read from are: ⁠⁠Andy Orchard’s translation of the Poetic Edda, Anthony Faulkes’s and Jesse Byock’s translations of the Prose Edda, and Lee M. Hollander’s translation of the Heimskringla.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

May 15, 202301:41:12
Is There Anybody Out There?
May 04, 202355:54
Advice from the Beatles

Advice from the Beatles

An episode from 4/26/23: What can the stories of the early lives of famous people teach us about our own upbringing, all the details nobody would know if they aren’t told to someone? Tonight, I read from the scattered remarks of John, Paul, George, and Ringo that are found at the beginning of the huge hardcover book The Beatles Anthology, and which cover their childhoods and the years before The Beatles became famous. As you listen, ask yourself how your own childhood might be summarized and collected from anecdotes like these.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Apr 26, 202359:41
On Seamus Heaney

On Seamus Heaney

An episode from 4/19/23: In 2020, the Irish historian and biographer R. F. Foster published a wonderful and brief book, On Seamus Heaney. It is a great introduction to Heaney, and tonight I read my favorite passages from it. The book spans his entire career, and his lifelong preoccupations with history, violence, family, and mythology.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Apr 19, 202353:27
Advice from William Wordsworth

Advice from William Wordsworth

An episode from 3/29/23: Why should we continue to read the poetry of William Wordsworth? Tonight’s episode is devoted to Jonathan Bate’s biography, Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World, where he more than answers the question. For me, anyone who cares about poetry devoted to nature, introspection, and autobiography, can still learn the most from Wordsworth. And his concerns—the necessity of emotion and plain language in poetry, the belief that we have no greater story to tell than our own, and his love for the natural world—are as contemporary as anything on the news.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Mar 29, 202301:00:04
Da Vinci & His Bodies

Da Vinci & His Bodies

An episode from 3/19/23: Around the year 1509, Leonardo da Vinci began his great anatomical work, dissecting upwards of thirty human bodies and making drawings of what he saw. Tonight’s episode is a poem about that experience – all that was isolating, exhilarating, gruesome, beautiful. How did Leonardo go past art, and past science, in search of something stranger, human, divine?

The poem is also being published simultaneously in the first issue of The Basilisk Tree. Many thanks to its editor, Bryan Helton (who is also a great poet himself), for taking the poem. Make sure to take a look at the other poems, and perhaps submit some of your own.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Mar 19, 202329:31
Anthology: Poems for Spring

Anthology: Poems for Spring

Mar 12, 202338:06
Anthology: Poems on How to Live
Jan 26, 202359:51
Anthology: Love Poems from the Last Four Centuries

Anthology: Love Poems from the Last Four Centuries

An episode from 1/18/23: Tonight I ask the question: what is love, and what is love poetry? Are poems about family and friendship love poems, just as much as those about romantic feeling, and longing, and heartbreak?

And even more: what is romantic love? What, for instance, did T. S. Eliot mean when he said, “Love is most nearly itself/When here and now cease to matter,” or when Emily Dickinson wrote of “Wild nights”?

The poems I read are:

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jan 18, 202359:35
Advice from Charles Dickens & Alice Munro

Advice from Charles Dickens & Alice Munro

An episode from 1/10/23: Tonight we hear from two great writers of fiction, Charles Dickens and Alice Munro.

Through a handful of readings from Claire Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life, we see how Dickens (1812-1870) was able to juggle, for almost a year, the writing of two novels simultaneously, both for serial publication. Thanks to a letter written by Fyodor Dostoevsky, who visited Dickens in London in 1862, we also hear Dickens speaking privately in a way that he rarely did publicly, admitting that his villains were better reflections of himself than his more lovable and generous characters. We also answer the question: what do David Copperfield and Jane Eyre have in common?

From the introduction to her Selected Stories, Alice Munro (born in 1931, and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize) describes how, as a homemaker, she came to writing short stories very nearly by necessity. She also discusses how she set her first attempts at fiction in faraway, historical, or Brontë-inspired surroundings, and only later came to see the artistic potential of her own backyard, in the Lake Huron region of Canada.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Jan 10, 202345:05
First Person: Voices from 1900-1914
Jan 02, 202357:48
The Great Myths #22: The Story of Ragnarok in the Norse Eddas

The Great Myths #22: The Story of Ragnarok in the Norse Eddas

An episode from 12/23/22: How did the Viking Norse tell a story as important as Ragnarok (the end of the world) in poetry, and then in prose? What does prose require that poetry does not, and vice-versa, especially when the accounts we have are separated by centuries of historical change, and religious conversion? 

In this third episode on Norse Mythology, I read the story of Ragnarok from the Prose Edda (dating to c. 1220), and then its corresponding section in the poem Voluspa (c. 1000) in the Poetic Edda. Each section is preceded by the story of the death of Odin's son, Balder, which in many ways precipitated Ragnarok. I also read from a later poem, Balder's Dreams (c. 1300).

The translation of the Poetic Edda (and Balder's Dreams) that I read from is by Andy Orchard, and the Prose Edda by Anthony Faulkes. The commentary I read from throughout the episode comes from the translation and commentary by Ursula Dronke.

The essential reference books on Norse myth that I will be using for this series are John Lindow’s Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals & Beliefs, Rudolf Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology, and Andy Orchard’s Cassell Dictionary of Norse Myth & Legend.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Dec 23, 202201:26:27
William Carlos Williams: 11 Essential Poems

William Carlos Williams: 11 Essential Poems

An episode from 12/15/22: Tonight, I read eleven essential poems from the American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). In the same generation as T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Williams is perhaps best known for never becoming an expatriate, and instead living most of his life as a family doctor in Rutherford, New Jersey.

His poems can be found in The Collected Poems Volume I: 1909-1939, The Collected Poems Volume II: 1939-1962, and Paterson. The biographies I read from are Paul Mariani’s William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked, and the essay on Williams’ life at The Poetry Foundation.

The poems I read are:

  • Pastoral (1917)
  • Danse Russe (1917)
  • Waiting (1921)
  • The Great Figure (1921)
  • The Red Wheelbarrow (1923)
  • Flowers by the Sea (first version) (1931)
  • War, the Destroyer! (1942)
  • Approach to a City (1946)
  • To a Dog Injured in the Street (1954)
  • Deep Religious Faith (1954)
  • from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower (1955)

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Dec 15, 202201:03:14
Van Gogh's Early Years

Van Gogh's Early Years

An episode from 12/7/22: Tonight, we enter into the early years of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), from his birth in the village of Zundert in the Netherlands, to his time in the Borinage mining region of Belgium. It was there, at the age of twenty-seven—and after years of personal and professional failures—that he hit bottom … and suddenly realized he was an artist.

In the first half of the episode, I read from Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s biography, Van Gogh: The Life. The second half is devoted to a handful of letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother in 1879 and 1880, where he admits the humiliation of his failures, and then revels in his newfound passion for drawing and painting. The letters can be found online here.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Dec 07, 202253:29
Give Me Another Tarantula

Give Me Another Tarantula

An episode from 11/29/22: "Give Me a Tarantula" is shorthand for a scattering of thoughts on a handful of things that can't fill their own episode. The first Tarantula collection is here, but tonight I talk about:

  • What happens when two comedians lose all their confidence when they meet in an elevator?
  • What is the happiest story you can think of (hint: it almost always comes from childhood)?
  • How lucky was Shakespeare to have been born just at the time when the translation of Latin literature became all the rage in England?
  • What do Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the French photographer Eugene Atget have in common… and are you, dear listener out there, an autodidact?
  • And are you someone like William H. Macy in the movie Magnolia, who has “a lot of love to give?” And are you like van Gogh, who knows he has a purpose, but can’t find it yet?

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Nov 29, 202251:22
Robert Lowell: 10 Essential Poems

Robert Lowell: 10 Essential Poems

An episode from 11/4/22: Tonight, I read ten essential poems from the American poet, Robert Lowell (1917-1977). Lowell was perhaps the last American poet we could possibly call “famous” during his lifetime. The combination of his early success and subsequent struggles with mental illness meant that the public witnessed all of it, from his slow break with formalism, his stint with “Confessional” poetry, and the wildly uneven nature of his huge output. Ten other people would come up ten other poems to include here. These are mine:

  • Memories of West Street & Lepke (from Life Studies, 1959)
  • The Public Garden (from For the Union Dead, 1964)
  • For the Union Dead (from For the Union Dead, 1964)
  • History (from History, 1973)
  • Bobby Delano (from History, 1973)
  • Anne Dick I. 1936 (from History, 1973)
  • For Robert Kennedy 1925-68 (from History, 1973)
  • Marriage? (Hospital II., part 4) (from The Dolphin, 1973)
  • Dolphin (from The Dolphin, 1973)
  • Epilogue (from Day by Day, 1977)

They can all be found in his Collected Poems. His letters are collected in The Letters of Robert Lowell, Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell, and The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle. It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember enjoying Paul Mariani’s Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Nov 14, 202253:54
What Do Writers & Actors Have in Common?
Nov 04, 202249:06
True Horror
Oct 27, 202257:43
The Great Myths #21: The Story of Creation in the Norse Eddas

The Great Myths #21: The Story of Creation in the Norse Eddas

An episode from 10/19/22: In this second episode on Norse Mythology, I read from the creation myths found in the poem, “Voluspa,” found in the Poetic Edda, and from its corresponding sections in the Prose Edda. I also read from commentaries on these sections.

The translation of the Poetic Edda that I read from is by Andy Orchard, and the Prose Edda by Anthony Faulkes. The commentary I read from on the Poetic Edda, for the last half hour of the episode, comes from the translation and commentary by Ursula Dronke.

As other episodes on the Norse Myths are produced, they will all be ⁠collected here⁠.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Oct 19, 202201:22:29
Old Friends
Oct 11, 202201:07:43
Ted Hughes: 12 Essential Poems

Ted Hughes: 12 Essential Poems

An episode from 10/3/22: Over the course of forty years, Ted Hughes (1930-1998) wrote some of the best poetry of the twentieth (or any) century. Tonight, I read twelve of Hughes’s essential poems, where we see his primal concerns—the violence but also beauty of nature and animal life; mythology and religion; and his own autobiography—expressed in language as powerful as any that has ever been written. The poems are:

  • Wind (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957)
  • Six Young Men (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957)
  • Crow's Song About God (from Crow, 1970-71)
  • “I skin the skin” (from Gaudete, 1977)
  • A Green Mother (from Cave Birds, 1978)
  • Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days (from Cave Birds, 1978)
  • Cock-Crows (from Remains of Elmet, 1979)
  • Rain (from Moortown Diary, 1979)
  • February 17th (from Moortown Diary, 1979)
  • Four March Watercolours (from River, 1983)
  • October Salmon (from River, 1983)
  • Life After Death (from Birthday Letters, 1998)
  • This is followed by a reading Hughes gave of his poem, “October Salmon.”

Hughes’s poetry can be found in his Collected Poems. Smaller selections include Selected Poems 1957-1994 and A Ted Hughes Bestiary. In this episode I also read from The Letters of Ted Hughes.

Other episodes on Hughes include one where he discusses privacy for his family in the wake of Sylvia Plath’s posthumous fame; another where he discusses how he discovered poetry; and another, much longer episode of readings from Hughes’s poetry.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the SunThe Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.

Oct 03, 202201:23:47