Human Voices Wake Us

A reading of two poems from Seamus Heaney's 1991 collection, Seeing Things. The poems are the title poem, "Seeing Things," and "1.1.87"; both address the memory and death of Heaney's father. 

Seeing Things can be purchased 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.

A reading of five more poems from the sequence "Squarings," from Seamus Heaney's 1991 collection, Seeing Things. The poems in the sequence have only numbers for titles, and these are #32, #40, #42, 45, and #46. Seeing Things can be purchased 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.

A reading of three poems from the sequence "Squarings," from Seamus Heaney's 1991 collection, Seeing Things. The poems in the sequence have only numbers for titles, and these are #25, #27 and #31. Seeing Things can be purchased 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.

A reading of three poems from the sequence "Squarings," from Seamus Heaney's 1991 collection, Seeing Things. The poems in the sequence have only numbers for titles, and these are #2, #8 and #15. Seeing Things can be purchased 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.

In this third episode on Celtic mythology, I read a summary of the Lebor Gabála Érenn, otherwise known as the Book of Invasions, or The Book of the Taking of Ireland. I also discuss why, with some of this mythological and folkloric material, reading a summary and not the original is preferable.  

The summary I read comes from James MacKillop's Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology.

The 5-volume English translation of the entire Lebor Gabála Érenn (published by the Irish Texts Society) can be purchased in hardcover here; however, each volume is now available for download as .pdfs, 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.

Artlessness is a thing. 

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 creativity from other artists, poets, and writers.

The quotations from this episode come from: Joseph Campbell (interviewed by Michael Toms), Beethoven (from Jan Swafford's biography), and the Paris Review interviews with W. S. Merwin and W. D. Snodgrass.

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.

Since there aren't many poems in Seamus Heaney's 1979 collection Field Work that I wanted to share here, I've done something a bit different this time:

The first poem I share is "The Strand at Lough Beg," from Field Work, and the second is part 8 from Heaney's sequence Station Island, from 1984. "The Strand at Lough Beg" is dedicated to Heaney's second cousin, Colum McCartney, who was murdered in 1975 by Protestant sectarians; the poem from Station Island allows that same cousin to scold Heaney for making his death, almost, into an aesthetic experience. It seemed worthwhile to put these poems together here. Finally, a section from the title sequence of Field Work is read.

Field Work can be purchased here, and Station Island here. 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.

The Poet Speaks will be a series of episodes where I share my favorite comments on creativity from other artists, poets, and writers. 

The quotations from this episode come from:

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 seven poems from Seamus Heaney's fourth collection, North (1975):

Following the poems is a reading from interviews Heaney gave on the writing of North, taken from Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. This time around, the interviews are prefaced by a more historical introduction to the bog bodies that figure in the poems from North. The books mentioned and read from in this section are P. V. Glob's The Bog People: Iron Age Man Preserved, Wijnand Van Der Sanden's Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe, Timothy Taylor's The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death, Miranda Aldhouse-Green's Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe's Ancient Mystery.

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.