Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 4/8/21: Only six months after starting Human Voices Wake Us, I came to record episode #100. While some housecleaning and rearranging now makes this episode #39, and while you can still hear me getting used the format and using my voice, it's still fun to hear the story of how this podcast began, and how Ted Bundy and a Vice Presidential Debate solidified me in my ambition. I&#3...

An episode from 4/5/21: In this second episode on ⁠ Celtic mythology , I read the story "The Quarrel of the Two Pig-keepers and how the Bulls were Begotten." One of the great joys of Celtic myth are stories of relay-race metamorphoses, where two humans chase each other while changing into many different animal forms. The story serves as one of many preludes to the Great Irish epic, The T...

An episode from 4/1/21`: This is the sixth in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet , which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass . Here, Zweig talks about the books Whitman learned from the most, even as he tried in his poetry to seem completely unlettered, and without any i...

An episode from 3/28/21: This is the fifth in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with ⁠ ⁠Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet ⁠⁠ , which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass . Here, we move closer to the writing of Leaves of Grass , which coincided with Whitman and his family's work in building and selling ho...

An episode from 3/23/21: This is the fourth in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with ⁠Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet ⁠ , which focuses on the years preceding the 1855 publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass . Here, Zweig talks about Whitman in the year 1849, when the first stirrings of what would become Leaves of Grass be...

An episode from 3/21/21: Tonight is a bit of an experiment in what might become a podcast diary/autobiography. I begin with a poem I wrote when I was 18, and use that as a jumping-off place to wonder where my stubbornness, confidence, and early thoughts on art and creativity came from. It may not work at all. Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us  on Substack , where you can also get our ne...

An episode from 3/17/21: This is the third in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with ⁠⁠ ⁠Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet ⁠⁠⁠ , which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass . Here, he focuses on Whitman's earliest involvement in politics, and the importance of opera and theater in his life, aspects of whic...

An episode from 3/9/21: This is the second in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with ⁠ ⁠Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet ⁠⁠ , which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass . Here, he focuses on Whitman's earliest involvement in politics, and the importance of opera and theater in his life, aspects of which...

An episode from 3/8/21: Tonight on The Great Myths, we move on to Celtic mythology. To star, I read the short but representative story, "The Dream of Óengus" (Aisling Óenguso). So many aspects of the story serve as a nice introduction to the larger stories I will talk about and read from in future episodes. The translation of "The Dream of Óengus" that I use comes from Jeffrey...

An episode from 3/4/21: This is the first in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I start with ⁠Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet ⁠ , which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass . Here, Zweig talks about Whitman's earliest years in Long Island, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. This is also an important episode for this podcast,...

An episode from 3/21/21: Tonight, I read from three newspaper articles by George Orwell on the outcry over the Allied bombings of German cities during World War Two, and the aftermath of the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. Nobody writes about war like George Orwell, and it's refreshing to hear someone suggest that there's no point in trying to civilize, or be more humane, when it come...

An episode from 2/26/21: In this last episode on Egyptian mythology, I read from Herodotus's account of Egyptian embalming and mummification practices, followed by a summing up of the Egyptian myth episodes. The translation of Herodotus used is the Landmark Herodotus ; the essays I read from can be found in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt , and the entries on "Mythological Texts&...

An episode from 2/23/21: Tonight, I read a few poems from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind . He died yesterday at the age of 101, and you can read his obituary here . A friend introduced me to Ferlinghetti's book in high school, and I've always associated him with my earliest reading, and my earliest attempts at poetry. Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us  on...

An episode from 2/19/21: In this third episode on Egyptian mythology, I give a brief introduction to the famous Book of the Dead, and then read from the longest chapter in the book, Chapter 125. Both come from Miriam Lichtheim's Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 2: The New Kingdom . Other episodes on Egyptian mythology ⁠ are here ⁠ . Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us  on Substack ,...

An episode from 2/17/21: Tonight, I read what is probably Walt Whitman's greatest single poem, " Crossing Brooklyn Ferry ." More focused than "Song of Myself," and concerned with much more than the mourning that consumes "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," here Whitman gives himself over to sympathy with the past and the future. He shows all of us how...

An episode from 2/13/21: George Orwell's 1933 memoir of voluntary poverty, Down and Out in Paris and London , can still rip your heart out. Tonight, I read a few passages from it. Few people have ever written about the reality of poverty as viscerally and sympathetically as him. Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack , where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. Y...

An episode from 2/7/21: In this second episode on Egyptian mythology, I offer an overview of the story of the god Osiris, with readings from the most complete Egyptian and Greek sources. As with so much of the surviving corpus of Egyptian religious writings, hardly any attention is paid to our idea of a coherent narrative. The focus is almost entirely on an incantatory summary of what Osiris can d...

An episode from 1/31/21: The American writer Laurie Sheck (born 1953) was the first poet that I read extensively from on Human Voices Wake Us . Her 1996 book, The Willow Grove , remains one of the best single collections of poetry I’ve ever read, especially where Sheck remembers her childhood, learning to read, first going to museums, and so much else. And for someone like me, for whom the mystiqu...

An episode from 1/28/21: Tonight, I read from perhaps the oldest surviving religious texts in the world, the spells and prayers that were inscribed into the walls of the tombs of the pharaohs as early as 2353 BC. Collectively referred to as the Pyramid Texts, they were the basis of the later Coffin Texts, and the more famous Egyptian Book of the Dead. These texts were not meant as "literature...

An episode from 12/31/20: In this last episode on the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, I read of Gilgamesh's travels to the ends of the earth as he mourns the death of his friend, Enkidu. There, he meets with Utanapishti, who relates the Mesopotamian account of the Flood. The story ends with Gilgamesh’s failure at achieving immortality. The translations I read from are by ⁠⁠ Andrew George ⁠⁠ an...

An episode from 12/27/20: Tonight, I read one of T. S. Eliot's earliest poems, " Preludes ". While many readers rightly go for his more famous poems, I take the time to discuss here how "Preludes" was my way into Eliot's later, and more allusive, poetry. Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us  on Substack , where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. Y...

An episode from 11/28/20: Tonight, I read from Andrew Solomon’s book, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity . This passage is taken from the chapter on the lives of deaf children, their parents, and the difficulties they face. 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 podca...

An episode from 11/27/20: A reading from Studs Terkel’s book, ⁠ American Dreams: Lost & Found ⁠ . Here, Andy Johnson talks about his life in rural Minnesota at the turn of the twentieth century. The interview is also included in Terkel’s best-of volume, ⁠ The Studs Terkel Reader ⁠ .  Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack , where you can also get our newsletter and other extr...

An episode from 11/11/20: Tonight, I read from Lawrence Weschler’s collection of essays, Vermeer in Bosnia . In the title essay, Weschler describes a war-crimes trial judge who can only find solace from his daily work by visiting Vermeer’s paintings at the Mauritshuis museum. Weschler also mentions the context of Vermeer's career as an artists, which coincided with a series of wars. Don’t forg...

An episode from 11/10/20: Tonight, I read Walt Whitman's 1863 letter to the parents of Erastus Haskell. Haskell was wounded during the Civil War, and was befriended and cared for by Whitman in one of the many Washington, D.C., hospitals that the poet frequented. Haskell eventually died of his wounds. The letter can be found in the best account of Whitman’s life during the Civil War, Roy Morris...