Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 9/27/21: In what may be my favorite episode of this podcast, I talk about loneliness: is it really so bad, and is easy sociability really so much better? I also look at where my own experience of loneliness began, as a four year-old who suddenly found himself with hearing problems, and how it has led to my own adult love for interviews, anecdotes on nearly any subject, autobiograph...

An episode from 9/21/21: Tonight I read Walt Whitman's poem, "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun," first published in the 1865 collection Drum Taps . Among Whitman's shorter poems, there is no better expression of the tension he felt between nature and urban life. You can read the poem here or find it in Walt Whitman: Selected Short Poems . Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake...

An episode from 9/19/21: Are some topics not fit for poetry and art? Does the intentional crafting of atrocity and genocide into stanzas, scenes, rhymes, drama, or just DVD covers or posters, exploit and cheapen history? Or is this simply the way stories are told and passed down? Tonight, I talk about this in relation to two poems of mine about the Holocaust, "A Ploughed Field" and &quot...

An episode from 9/13/21: Tonight, I read a small section of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." For those who want to find it for themselves, it later ends up as part of section #33. I can't think of a more life-affirming passage in Whitman's or anybody else's poetry, than this rolling, glorious, catalogue. The best place to find Whitman's poetry and other writing online...

An episode from 9/12/21: Tonight, I gather together all of the poems I've recorded from my 2018 book of poems from prehistory, Bone Antler Stone . You can buy the book here , and read reviews and essays about the book here . The poems are: The Sun Sets into the Sea Poems from traveling through Orkney Pytheas in the Shetlands The Wanderer (Flight to Orkney) Walking Birsay to Swannay The Brough...

An episode from 9/10/21: In this sixth episode on Celtic mythology, I read the famous story of the wanderings of Oisin/Oisín in the Irish Otherworld, the Tir na nÓg. As usual, I make use of from James MacKillop's Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology . The two versions of the story I read from can be found in James MacKillop's Myths & Legends of the Celts and Joseph Campbell's The...

An episode from 9/7/21: Tonight, I read from an interview conducted by the Federal Writer's Project, with a man working the late shift at an all-night diner in Vermont. The excerpt comes from the Winter 2019 issue of Lapham's Quarterly , but a larger collection of WPA interviews can be found in the 2004 book, Men Against Granite . Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack ,...

An episode from 9/4/21: In this fifth episode on Celtic mythology, I read the famous "pillow talk" between Queen Medb and King Ailill of Connacht. Their dispute over who owns more riches, land, and animals leads to the start of the famous Táin Bó Cúailnge/Cattle Raid of Cooley. The text of the story is taken from Thomas Kinsella's translation of The Táin . I also read a passage about...

An episode from 9/2/21: A reading of Harry Kessler's diary from July 10, 1895, visiting the French poet, Paul Verlaine. From the English translation by Laird Easton, published as Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918 . 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...

An episode from 8/27/21: In this fourth episode on Celtic mythology , I read the story of how the great Irish hero, Cúchulainn, got his name by replacing a guard dog at the home of the smith, Culann. In one brief episode, there are so many strands: the early deeds of a hero, the precocious child who outdoes the adults, the Irish system of fosterage, and the mythical link between characters and ani...

An episode from 8/25/21: Tonight, I read from Louis-Sébastien Mercier's Le Tableau de Paris . The translation is from Helen Simpson's 1933 selection from its twelve volumes, The Waiting City: Paris 1782-1788 . Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack , where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also suddpport the podcast by ordering any of my books: Not...

An episode from 8/2/21: A reading from James Garbarino's 1999 book on violent young men, Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent & How We Can Save Them . Garbarino has written many other books on the topic, and this one especially can both continue to speak to us today, as well as seem like a time capsule before the internet went crazy, before smartphones, and before social media.  For these...

An episode from 7/14/21: Tonight, I read and comment on interviews that Seamus Heaney gave on the writing of his 1991 book, Seeing Things . Perhaps surpassing even his 1975 collection, North , Seeing Things includes the forty-eight part autobiographical sequence called "Squarings," and much of the interview that I read from is taken up with these incredible poems. The interviews are from...

An episode from 7/19/21: Tonight, I read 13 poems from Seamus Heaney's 1991 collection, and arguably his best single book of poetry, Seeing Things . Nearly all of the poems I've chosen from this collection are from his incredible autobiographical sequence, "Squarings": 11 poems from the sequence called "Squarings": #2, #8, #15, #25, #27, #31, #32, #40, #42, #45, #46 See...

An episode from 7/7/21: In this third episode on Celtic mythology , I read a summary of that massive work of poetry and prose that combined the efforts of generations' of medieval Irish scholars and earlier storytellers into a weird, brilliant and ungainly whole: the Lebor Gabála Érenn , otherwise known as the Book of Invasions . I also discuss why, with some of this mythological and folkloric...

An episode from 7/3/21: Tonight, with the help of a few quotations, I ask: should poets and writers be able to cook themselves a decent meal, or is a life of the mind the best we can expect? Is it a relief to hear Beethoven admit that everything he did, outside of music, was wrong and stupid? Is it useful to tell younger poets that they should find anything to do other than poetry, since it will n...

An episode from 6/26/21: These "Advice" episodes (originally called The Poet Speaks) will each feature a small collection of quotations on creativity from various artists, poets, and writers. The main quotations tonight wonder about the proper way for a "general" education to proceed, and each one laments the over-emphasis, in the last century, on theory and research in the tea...

An episode from 6/12/21: Tonight, I read three poems from Seamus Heaney's third collection, Wintering Out (1972): The Tollund Man Limbo First Calf Following the poems is a reading from interviews Heaney gave on the writing of Wintering Out , taken from Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney . The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here ,...

An episode from 5/30/21: Tonight, I read three poems from Seamus Heaney's second collection, Door into the Dark (1969): Dream The Forge Bogland Following the poems is a reading from interviews Heaney gave on the writing of Door into the Dark , taken from Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney . The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here...

An episode from 5/16/21: Tonight, I read three poems from one of the great literary debuts of the twentieth century, Seamus Heaney's Death of a Naturalist (1966). Following the poems is a reading from interviews Heaney gave on the writing of Death of a Naturalist, taken from Dennis O'Driscoll's ⁠Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney⁠ . The poems are: Follower  Poem  Personal H...

An episode from 5/3/21: Tonight, I read a letter Hart Crane sent to his father in January of 1924. Outside of van Gogh's letters, I don't know of a better attempt by an artist to explain his vocation to someone who will never understand it. You can find the letter in O My Land, My Friends: The Selected Letters of Hart Crane . Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack , where...

An episode from 4/17/21: These “Advice” episodes (originally called The Poet Speaks) will each feature a small collection of quotations on creativity from various artists, poets, and writers.  Tonight, the main quotations come from Serge Bramly's ⁠Leonardo: The Artist & the Man⁠ , where he writes that da Vinci “was always less concerned with the finishing of a picture than with its concept...

An episode from 4/19/21: While I was already out of high school for two years when Columbine happened on April 20, 1999, it still feels bound up with everything I went through from 1993-1997. I spend the first part of this episode talking about high school, and how much my writing from this time is involved with violence and self-harm. I then read four poems about Columbine. The two books I mentio...

An episode from 4/17/21: These “Advice” episodes (originally called The Poet Speaks) will each feature a small collection of quotations on creativity from various artists, poets, and writers. Tonight, we hear about the strange (and much-edited) afterlife of Shakespeare's King Lear ; how Robert Fitzgerald (translator of Homer and Virgil), got his start during World War 2; how Philip Larkin felt...

An episode from 4/14/21: Along the lines of a previous long episode, "Stubbornness," I wonder aloud about the jealousy that creative people feel towards each other (this includes my own), and I wonder where it comes from, and what use it 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 po...