Human Voices Wake Us

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...

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,...