An episode from 3/12/23: Tonight, I return to new episodes with a handful of poems about the spring. As I mention, living as I do in a city usually inundated with snow, it has been bizarre to have not shoveled the driveway even once. And since the next few weeks of episodes are already planned out, it seemed appropriate to get to spring early, since the earth is doing that already. The poems are:

• Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), “There is another sky”
• e. e. cummings (1894-1962), “O sweet spontaneous”
• Richard Eberhart (1904-2005), “This Fevers Me”
• Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), from “Toward an Organic Philosophy”
• Vernon Watkins (1906-1967), from “The Tributary Seasons”
• Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), “Spring” (“To what purpose, April, do you return again?”
• Abbie Huston Evans (1881-1983), “The Old Yellow Shop”
• Elinor Wylie (1885-1928), from “Wild Peaches”
• Henry King (1592-1669), “A Contemplation upon Flowers”
• William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from Act 3 of King Lear
• Ted Hughes (1930-1998), “Four March Watercolours”

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 [email protected].

An episode from 5/20/24: Tonight, after a long hiatus, we return to Norse myth with the story of Sigurd’s killing of the dragon, Fafnir. Couched in a much longer narrative that contains shape-shifting, war, revenge, brief appearances by Odin and Loki, and finally Sigurd’s ability to hear the language of birds and animals, it is a brilliant and vivid example of storytelling in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

I read from the two great sources of the story, the ⁠Volsung Saga⁠ (in the Jesse Byock translation) and Snorri Sturluson’s ⁠Prose Edda⁠ (in the Anthony Faulkes translation). I also discuss the history of the story, and its reworking in the Nibelungenlied, and Wagnerian opera.

⁠Listen to the other Great Myths here⁠.

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  [email protected].

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.

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  [email protected].

An episode from 8/12/22: Everybody knows the most famous soliloquy in all of drama, or at least the first line of it: ⁠"To be or not to be, that is the question,"⁠ from act three of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Tonight, I delve into the speech and try to figure out why it works so well not just as poetry and drama, but why it has leapt beyond literature entirely to become a cultural touchstone.

Throughout the episode I include the performance of this speech from modern actors: the first is by ⁠Paapa Essiedu⁠, and the second by ⁠Andrew Scott⁠. The very last, to give a sense of what the original pronunciation of the speech would have sounded like, is performed by ⁠Ben Crystal⁠. A larger compilation of nine different versions ⁠can be found here⁠.

The books read from in this episode are Ben and David Crystal’s ⁠Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion⁠, Marjorie Garber’s ⁠Shakespeare After All⁠, and Peter Ackroyd’s ⁠Shakespeare: The Biography⁠.

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:

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 voices that sound so much like our own, and what will people look back on 2023 learn for themselves?

Each of these quotations can be found in Philipp Blom’s wonderful book, ⁠The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914⁠.

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  [email protected].

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.

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  [email protected].

An episode from 12/9/24: Tonight's episode gathers together all of the readings I've done on this podcast from the poet William Blake (1757-1827). All of these poems can be found online at The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake:

Listeners will forgive me for providing an episode that isn't quite brand new. But in the two months since I tentatively ended this podcast, I've seen that a way forward could be to bring out new episodes every few months. My thanks to those listeners who have responded positively to this idea.

Please continue to keep your subscription to the podcast, to share it with others, and leave reviews wherever you listen.

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  [email protected].

An episode from 5/5/21: Tonight, I read part of John Keats's ⁠famous⁠ ⁠letter⁠ of October 27, 1818, where he talks about the poet and the poetic character. He asks the questions: how much of a poet's life is given up by their focus on poetry, by their people-watching and -listening, by their lack of social skills? How much of their lives are left over when they become so consumed (whether attracted or repelled) with the lives and words of others?

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  [email protected].

An episode from 12/30/20: In this second episode on Mesopotamian myth, we return to the story of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh and Enkidu's destructive adventures lead directly to the latter's death, and here I read Enkidu’s deathbed speech, and the dream he has of the Underworld. The translations I read from are by ⁠Andrew George⁠ and N. K. Sandars.

Other episodes on Mesopotamian myth can be found here.

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  [email protected].