Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 2/23/2026: My new book of poetry, Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire , is finally out. I spend this episode talking briefly about how always having the writing or reading of poetry close at hand and close in mind, has saved my life many times. I also read a new poem, "London, 1943." If you enjoy this podcast, please get a copy of the book, review...

An episode from 1/2/23: Tonight, I read a handful of voices from those living in Europe and the United States between 1900 and 1914. Rephrased only slightly, nearly all of their concerns (over technology, gender, nationalism, war, eugenics) feel like they could appear in the news or on the street today. Then and now, what is actually going on alongside all the dread? What can we learn from these v...

An episode from 2/9/2026: This is the second episode where I read from my upcoming book Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire , which comes out on February 23. This time, I read seven of my favorite poems from the point of view of women. They are: Mr Cassian’s Good Friend, Emily Dickinson Völva Song to Sequana Epona The Seeress of Vix Miriam Morgan le Fay As I mention, more i...

An episode from 2/2/2026: For the next few episodes I’ll be reading poems from my book Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire , which comes out on February 23. As the title says, it begins with the Columbine high school shooting in 1999 and travels back to the invention of fire almost two million years ago. Along the way, there’s creativity from prehistoric Europe to Edward Ho...

An episode from 1/26/2026: Tonight, I read two poems from the American poet William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), “Earth” and “The River, by Night.” Just as with the episode on Bryant’s life from earlier this month, I hope this episode brings his writing and poetry to the attention of more readers. The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others,...

An episode from 12/7/22: This week, I am reposting what is perhaps my favorite episode of Human Voices Wake Us , first posted back in late 2022. 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 prof...

An episode from 1/12/2026: Tonight, I read from the oldest religious poetry from India, the collection of 1,028 ritual hymns known as the The Rig Veda . Specifically, I read from the most popular story found there, the defeat of the serpent Vrtra by the god Indra and the freeing of the waters of the world. I begin by telling the story briefly and then sharing examples of the short references to it...

An episode from 1/5/2026: Tonight, I read a handful of passages from Gilbert Muller’s William Cullen Bryant: Author of America . During his lifetime, Bryant (1794-1878) was the most popular poet in America as well as one of the country’s most trusted and influential editors and journalists. Through Bryant’s own words and those of his contemporaries, I trace the story of that double-prominence, and...

An episode from 12/28/25: What was it like to know Shakespeare, to stand in the theater and watch one of his plays, to be a neighbor who knew him as a teenager? What was it like to pass through London as a student or visitor or diplomat, and note in passing that you saw Shakespeare’s plays, or read one of his poems? So much of Shakespeare’s life is lost to us, but over the centuries his biographer...

An episode from 12/15/25: Tonight, I read from Irving Howe’s World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made . In light of the events in Australia yesterday, I take the time not just to talk about what it meant to be a Jewish immigrant to America around the year 1900, but what it means to me to be a Jew right now. The best way to support the...

An episode from 12/8/25: Note: A version of this episode was posted last week and quickly taken down when I realized the audio quality was poor. I have rerecorded it here; apologies to those listeners who heard the subpar version. Tonight, I read from John Eliot’s Gardiner’s Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven . Gardiner talks about Bach’s Christian faith, how much we can expect listeners today to...

An episode from 11/24/25: Tonight, I read from one of the best books on religion in ancient Egypt, Erik Hornung’s Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many . Few have written so lucidly on the subject: Egyptians were actually obsessed with life and its renewal, not in wallowing death; the “monotheistic” reforms of Akhenaten were not visionary at all, but largely practical and prett...

An episode from 11/17/25: Tonight, I read a section from David Anthony’s book The Horse, the Wheel, and Language . It is a wonderfully written account of the archeological and linguistic attempts to discover the origins of the Indo-European language families. The part I read from retells the famous story of Sir William Jones , the Welsh linguist and lawyer stationed in British India in the late ei...

An episode from 11/10/25: Tonight, I talk about literacy and education in the ancient world, both the fascinating aspects of memorization and of what “reading” meant back (it was much closer to reading shorthand today), and the precarious reality that anyone who underwent scribal training in Mesopotamia or Egypt might not even live long enough to see their education through. The book I read from i...

An episode from 11/3/25: Tonight, I read what is perhaps Walt Whitman’s greatest poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” I also set it in the context of Whitman’s life as a poet: he wrote and published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 and was certain that the book would have an immediate cultural and national impact. When this didn’t happen, and while Whitman was preparing the second edition...

An episode from 10/24/25: I’ve been waiting in vain for a cold to pass so I can record a new episode. As that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, the new movie about Bruce Springsteen reminded me that a few years ago I recorded an episode about his 1982 album Nebraska . While the original episode itself is much longer, tonight’s episode presents only the part about Springsteen. I hope you e...

An episode from 10/6/25: Tonight, I read from Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast , first published in 1840. It tells of the death of one sailor, George Ballmer. The text of this passage can be found here . I also read a quote from the poet Derek Walcott, and part of the poem “ The Burning of the Leaves ,” by Laurence Binyon. The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a revie...

An episode from 9/25/25: Tonight, I read a few entries from the book Gillian Anderson edited, called Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous . It is a collection of sexual fantasies from women all over the world, but as I point out, behind the acrobatics and explicitness of what we assume fantasy to be all about, a much simpler and basic need is also being longed for. (And I have a feeling that men, t...

An episode from 9/15/25: Tonight, I read a long section on the last days of the philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) from the biography Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life , by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings. (For those who are interested, the BBC’s In Our Time devotes an entire hour to Benjamin’s life and work.) I also read two small passages from Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: The Ca...

An episode from 9/9/25: Tonight, I read from three books: A small passage from The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe , by Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, on how pocket calendars were essential references for popular knowledge. A longer passage, on the Protestant Reformation (and the invention of moveable type that facilitated its spread), from Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to D...

An episode from 9/1/25: Tonight, I read a small passage from Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf , and then a much longer passage from Laurie Lisle’s Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe . In it, Lisle describes the weeks and months in late 1915 during which O’Keeffe found herself as an artist after her decision to start from scratch and devote herself to drawing only in charcoal . It was...

An episode from 8/27/25: Tonight, I read from Amanda Podany’s wonderful book, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East . After a royal wedding took place in the ancient Syrian city of Ebla around 2300 BCE, the new king and queen spent no less than three weeks among the tombs and statues of their royal forbears. I conclude the episode with the response of one listener to...

An episode from 8/23/25: Returning to the podcast after a long hiatus, I read from Henry Mayhew and John Binny’s London Labour and the London Poor , their exhaustive and essential description of life in London for the working poor in the mid-nineteenth century. Far from being a dry and distant document, it is a work of literature in itself, as this description of the London docks—and those hoping...

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 o...

An episode from 6/15/25 : Tonight, the podcast returns briefly for a reading of my new short story, "The One Who Sang So Well." The episode coincides with the story's publication in The Basilisk Tree — you can read it here . Many thanks to editor Bryan Helton for taking the story. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here , or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid , To the...