Human Voices Wake Us

In beginning a new series of Great Myths, now delving into Celtic mythology, I read the short but representative story, "The Dream of Óengus" (Aisling Óenguso). I also discuss how 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.

For anyone entering into these stories, I will also never stop recommending James MacKillop's Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. It is one of the great reference books.

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 "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.

This is the first 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, I   prefer the two editions published by the Library of America: the first includes the 1855 and 1892 versions of Leaves of Grass, and the second includes the same, 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 three essays by George Orwell on the Allied bombings of German cities in World War Two, and the aftermath of the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. 

I am reading from the exhaustive (more than 1,300 pages) collection of hundreds of Orwell's essays, reviews and articles to be found in the Everyman's Library edition of George Orwell's Essays. For those who would just like to see find the text of what I've read from, their online counterparts are linked to below:

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 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.

A reading of Herodotus's account of Egyptian embalming/mummification practices, followed by a summing up of Egyptian myth episodes.

The translation of Herodotus used is the Landmark Herodotus; the essays I read from can be found in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, and the entries on "Mythological Texts" and "Mythology"; the grumpy Egypt-hater's remarks can be found in the introduction to his volume in the Mythology of All Races.

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 "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking."

The full text 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, I  prefer the two editions published by the Library of America: the first includes the 1855 and 1892 versions of Leaves of Grass, and the second (and the book I'm reading from here) includes the same, 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 a few poems from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind, and some reflections on Ferlinghetti himself. He died yesterday at the age of 101, and you can read his obituary here.

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.