An episode from 11/10/20: Tonight, I read Walt Whitman's 1863 letter to the parents of Erastus Haskell. Haskell was wounded during the Civil War, and was befriended and cared for by Whitman in one of the many Washington, D.C., hospitals that the poet frequented. Haskell eventually died of his wounds.

The letter can be found in the best account of Whitman’s life during the Civil War, Roy Morris Jr.’s The Better Angel: Walt Whitman & the Civil War.

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 11/9/20: Tonight, I read one of the most moving sections of George Orwell’s 1937 book, The Road to Wigan Pier. In the book, Orwell goes to live in the mining district of Northern England, and this passage comes after he spent only a small amount of time in the mines himself, amid their horrible conditions. The question to ask after listening to what Orwell has to say is, "What aspects of modern life seem so essential to us today, as coal was for Orwell's time, that we are willing to accept that they can only be achieved through the suffering and drudgery of others?"

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].

In the first installment of The Art of the Opening Page, here is an excerpt from Neil Postman's 1985 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business."

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X/

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 11/5/2020: Tonight, I read a handful of poems from Robinson Jeffers's late collection, Hungerfield. The book, especially the title poem, is taken up with the death of Jeffers's wife, Una, in 1950:

Jeffers remains one of the few poets who remain just as strong, or even become a better poet, in old age. Buy ⁠The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers⁠ or Volume 3 of ⁠The Collected Poems of Robinson Jeffers⁠.

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 11/01/20: Tonight, I read two passages from Franz Kafka's The Trial: the fable known as "Before the Law," and the concluding scene, where Josef K. is executed. Kafka's ability to portray those who are powerless when faced with vast bureaucracy, or simply before the rituals of everyday interaction (which many also find impenetrable), is still so important to experience. The readings are taken from the recent translation of The Trial, by Breon Mitchell.

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 10/28/20: Tonight, I read from Stephen Ambrose's book on the Lewis & Clark expedition, Undaunted Courage. I've chosen a scene from the end of the book, detailing the last night of Meriwether Lewis's life, in October of 1809.

Unlike his more famous companion, William Clark, Lewis suffered from what we today would call depression, and this passage is one of the saddest I know. I've always thought that those of us who can stand to hear stories like this should take the time to do so, perhaps to offer a bit of the understanding that Clark was unable to find in life. Ambrose has remarked that he wept while writing it, and it was hard to keep myself from doing the same while reading it.

I should note the mistake I made when introducing the passage: this scene takes place not three days, but three years, after Lewis and Clark's return, but I haven't the heart to read this aloud again.

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 10/26/20: Tonight, I read six poems from the Last Poems of Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962):

Jeffers remains one of the few poets who remain just as strong, or even become a better poet, in old age. Buy The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers or Volume 3 of The Collected Poems of Robinson Jeffers.

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 10/25/20: A reading from the poet W. S. Merwin’s memoir, The Mays of Ventadorn, where he recalls meeting the poet Ezra Pound in 1949. Merwin, who died in 2019 at the age of ninety-one, was just starting out when he paid a visit to Pound.

For his part, by 1949 Ezra Pound (1885-1972) had already known and influenced every great Modernist poet since 1900, going to university in America with William Carlos Williams and H. D., living in London with W. B. Yeats for a time as his secretary, and famously editing T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Pound was also consumed with his own political and economic theories, and it was his time in Italy, and later broadcasts made in support of Mussolini during World War II, that prompted his arrest when he returned to American in 1945. Found mentally unfit to stand trial for treason, he was placed in St. Elizabeths, a psychiatric hospital in Washington, DC. Merwin, of course, became one of the great poets of his generation, in part because of his translations, beginning with The Poem of the Cid in 1959.

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 10/23/20: Tonight, I read from Michael Ondaatje’s 1993 novel, The English Patient. The book beautifully captures the experiences of time and nostalgia, especially when they are connected with romantic love. I also talk about how certain books become reference points in our lives.

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 10/22/20: Tonight, I read five poems from a (as yet unpublished) book, School of Night. Each circle around the strange feeling of being awake and alone at night, in an empty house or an apartment shared with family or friends, and the creativity and paranoia that can result. You can find links to more poems from the book 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].