A reading and commentary from interviews Seamus Heaney gave on the writing of his second book, 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, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987.

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.

A reading of the poem "Bogland," from Seamus Heaney's second collection, Door Into the Dark (1969).

The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987.

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.

A reading of two poems from Seamus Heaney's second collection, Door Into the Dark (1969):

The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987.

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.

A reading and commentary from interviews Seamus Heaney gave on the writing of his first book, Death of a Naturalist, taken from Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney.

The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987.

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 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:

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 Seamus Heaney's poem "Personal Helicon," from his first collection, Death of a Naturalist (1966).

The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987.

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.

A reading of Seamus Heaney's poem for his wife Marie, "Poem," from his first collection, Death of a Naturalist (1966).

The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987.

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.

A reading of Seamus Heaney's poem about his father, "Follower," from his first collection, Death of a Naturalist (1966).

The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987.

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 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 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 4/30/21: Here is a collection of all of the recordings I've made of the poetry of Robinson Jeffers from November of 2020 until this month. Jeffers' collected poetry spans three huge volumes, and nearly every individual collection included a narrative poem alongside the shorter lyrics. While Jeffers seemed to have believed that his reputation would rest on these longer poems, none of them (at least for me) come near matching the power that he is able to achieve in his shorter poems. It is easy to define him by his "inhumanist" philosophy, or to pigeon-hole him as a merely "Californian" or "ecological" poet, but no labels can contain what Jeffers was able to do with language.

Find all of these poems in The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, or the ⁠The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers⁠.

Tamar (1920-1923)

Roan Stallion (1924-1925)

The Women at Point Sur (1925-1926)

Cawdor (1926-1928)

Dear Judas (1928-1929)

Thurso's Landing (1930-1931)

Give Your Heart to the Hawks (1931-1933)

Such Counsels You Gave to Me (1935-1938)

The Double Axe (1942-1947)

Hungerfield (1948-1953)

Last Poems (1953-1962)

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].