An episode from 2/25/22: How important is it for an author to be associated with a certain place—Seamus Heaney and Ireland, Dickens and London, Robert Frost and New England? How does a young mother, stuck at home with her kids, decide to write short stories? What is the difference between writing fiction and poetry—between sitting down to revise the same story every day, and potentially being able to start a new poem each morning (unless, of course, you’re writing a long poem!). In this episode in the Advice series, we hear from Joan Didion and Alice Munro, Stanley Kunitz and Billy Collins.  

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 2/21/22: Most people will tell you that jealousy is a destructive mindset to get lost in, but tonight I wonder under what circumstances it’s justified. Starting from a simple observation—that Joan Didion’s memoir about the death of her husband would have probably gone unpublished or unnoticed without her name on the cover—I ask how many stories we aren’t hearing and will never hear, because their authors aren’t famous already?

You can also go back to the beginning of this podcast and listen to Jealousy Part 1.

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 2/14/22: One way that storytellers have always illustrated the radical nature of creativity has been to give an unusual talent to children, and set them loose in the adult world. Everything from superhero movies to The Shining has done this, and it’s not surprising to find it in the Welsh tale of ⁠Taliesin. Tonight, we see how this child became a great poet and seer, while also upending an evening at the king’s court.

The story I read is found in the mid-sixteenth century ⁠Hanes Taliesin⁠. The translation I use comes from Patrick K. Ford's ⁠The Mabinogi & Other Medieval Welsh Tales⁠.

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].

Don’t forget to join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here. 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.

An episode from 2/4/22: Here are five more poems going back to 1600 or so. Eavan Boland talks parenting and childhood; Wordsworth calls on Milton, and Milton retells our oldest story; Gerard Manley Hopkins writes out of a solitude few ever listened to, in his own life; and Philip Sidney reminds us why our own lives are worthy of poetry.

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 1/31/22: Tonight, I collect all of Ted Hughes’s poetry that I have recorded and posted here over the past year. They can all be found in his Collected Poems (smaller selections of his poetry include Selected Poems 1957-1994 and A Ted Hughes Bestiary).

Rather than organizing my readings of Hughes’s poetry chronologically, I start with what seems to me his best poetry (and some of the best poetry in English, period)—that is, the poetry he published between 1970 and 1983. Only after these are his first three collections read from; the readings after that pick up his later career.

A full table of contents can be downloaded here (it is too large to paste into the episode description).

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]⁠.

A reading of T. S. Eliot’s 1922 poem, The Waste Land.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to [email protected].

I assume that the small amount of work presented in each episode constitutes fair use. Publishers, authors, or other copyright holders who would prefer to not have their work presented here can also email me at [email protected], and I will remove the episode immediately.

An episode from 1/24/22: How did the evolutionary ability to stand on two feet, freeing our hands for all kinds of practical and creative activities, eventually lead to the development of language? Was the slow and painstaking path that led to what we call creativity, language, art, and religion—was it inevitable? And is it unfortunate what we’ve done with these gifts today?

Tonight, I read a handful of sections from Steven Mithen’s book ⁠The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and Science⁠.

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 1/21/22: How does a great poet come into the world? What is their childhood like, their education? What was the first poetry they knew, and when did they realize they wanted to write poetry themselves? Tonight, we hear the Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s answers to these questions.

As usual, these remarks come from Dennis O’Driscoll’s book-length collection of interviews with Heaney, ⁠Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney⁠. You can listen to our other episodes on Heaney and his poetry here.

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 1/18/22: Our anthology series presents a handful of poems from the past five centuries. How much or how little has our language changed since Roy Fisher remembered the London Blitz, Coleridge drew the greatest lesson he ever did from nature, and Emily Brontë experienced a haunting evening?

A reading of five poems:

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]⁠.