A reading of H. D.’s poem “Wine Bowl,” from her 1931 collection, Red Roses for Bronze. Buy her Collected Poems 1912-1944.

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 Walt Whitman's poem "The Sleepers." The reading is from the earliest published version of the poem, in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, where the poems was untitled. The full text of that version is here; the final revision of the poem is here.

The best place to find Whitman's poetry online (or anything about him at all) remains the Whitman Archive, and you can find every edition of Leaves of Grass here (as plain text downloads) and here (facsimiles of the original editions).

While there are hundreds of editions of Whitman's poetry in print, the best editions for me are Gary Schmidgall's Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892, which present his best poems in their earliest published form (this is the book I am reading from here); the second includes the first and last editions of Leaves of Grass, along with a huge selection of Whitman's prose.

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 six poems from Louise Glück's 1990 collection, Ararat. The poems are:

Buy Ararat, or Glück's Collected Poems 1962-2012.

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 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 appears in his 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 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 Gantz's wonderful book, Early Irish Myths & Sagas. James MacKillop's Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology is also an indispensable reference book for Celtic myth.

Other episodes on Celtic mythology ⁠are 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].

A reading of Walt Whitman's poem "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life." The reading is from the earliest published version of the poem, in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, where it is titled "Leaves of Grass #1." The full text of that version is here; the final revision of the poem is here.

The best place to find Whitman's poetry online (or anything about him at all) remains the Whitman Archive, and you can find every edition of Leaves of Grass here (as plain text downloads) and here (facsimiles of the original editions).

While there are hundreds of editions of Whitman's poetry in print, the best editions for me are Gary Schmidgall's Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892, which present his best poems in their earliest published form (this is the book I am reading from here); the second includes the first and last editions of Leaves of Grass, along with a huge selection of Whitman's prose.

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 H. D.’s poem “Lethe,” from her 1924 collection, “Heliodora.” Buy her Collected Poems 1912-1944.

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 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, where I first realized that perhaps the best way to talk about poetry and creativity is to simply read from any given book, and comment along the way.

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 3/21/21: Tonight, I read from three newspaper articles by George Orwell on the outcry over the Allied bombings of German cities during World War Two, and the aftermath of the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. Nobody writes about war like George Orwell, and it's refreshing to hear someone suggest that there's no point in trying to civilize, or be more humane, when it comes war.

The best edition of Orwell's essays is the huge ⁠Everyman's Library edition⁠. The pieces I've chosen from tonight 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 collection of four episodes on the mythology of Ancient Egypt. For a full list of readings used, visit the page for each individual episode, in the links below:

Episode #4 (beginning at 00:36) is an introduction and reading of only a handful of the ancient Egyptian Pyramid texts.

Episode #5 (beginning at 46:00) is an overview of the story of the Egyptian god Osiris, with readings from the most complete Egyptian and Greek sources

Episode #6 (beginning at 1:27:15) is an overview of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and a reading from Chapter 125.

Episode #7 (beginning at 1:56:45) is a reading of Herodotus's account of Egyptian embalming/mummification practices, followed by a summing up of Egyptian myth episodes.

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.