Human Voices Wake Us

Psalm 23 / Mary, Queen of Scots is Executed / 3 Poems by Mary Oliver

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An episode from 8/18/23: What makes a story or prayer or poem last? What circumstances can lead one monarch to order the execution of another? And why, over the past twenty years, was Mary Oliver the best-selling poet in America? Tonight's episode is another three-parter:

  • In the first part, I read from one of the great scholars of the Hebrew Bible in our time, James Kugel. I focus on a passage from his How to Read the Bible, and his summary of the variety of meanings that the twenty-third Psalm have inspired since it was first written. He asks how we judge the validity of any interpretation.
  • In the second part, I read from Peter Ackroyd's Tudors, on the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587).
  • In the third part, I read three poems from the American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019). They can all be found in her career-spanning selection, Devotions: "White Owl Flies into and Out of the Field," "Wild Geese," and "Snow Moon - Black Bear Gives Birth."

    • 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].


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