Human Voices Wake Us

A reading of seven poems from Ted Hughes's 1979 collection, Remains of Elmet, which can be found in his Collected Poems.

The seven poems are: 

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.

The Poet Speaks will be a series of episodes where I share my favorite comments on writing and creativity from other artists, poets, and writers. The quotations from this episode come from James Shapiro's 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear, and the Paris Review interviews with Robert Fitzgerald, Philip Larkin, Octavio Paz, and Robert Lowell.

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.

Jealousy. Along the lines of a previous long episode, "Stubbornness," I wonder aloud about the jealousy that creative people feel towards each other, especially my own, and I wonder where it comes from, and what use it can be. 

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.

Six months into this podcast, I come to episode #100. For those who are interested, here's a rundown of what I imagined I was doing when I got started, and how surprised I am to still be going. Thanks to all those who are listening!

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.

In this second episode on Celtic mythology, I read the story "The Quarrel of the Two Pig-keepers and how the Bulls were Begotten," from Thomas Kinsella's translation and selection from the great Irish epic, The Tain.

The other books referred to in this episode are by James MacKillop: the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology and Myths & Legends of the Celts. 

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.

This is the fourth in what will be a long series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. For the next month or so, the book I will be reading from is Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet, which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass, and and the decade or so after, which Zweig and many others identify has the period in which he wrote his best poetry.

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; 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 Walt Whitman's poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." The reading is from the earliest published version of the poem, in his book of Civil War poetry, Drum Taps. 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.

This is the fourth in what will be a long series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. For the next month or so, the book I will be reading from is Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet, which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass, and and the decade or so after, which Zweig and many others identify has the period in which he wrote his best poetry.

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; 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 Walt Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric." 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.