An episode from 7/19/24: Tonight, I read the small biographies of nearly two dozen poets, the kind of colorful summaries usually found in poetry anthologies. In many cases, reading a paragraph or two about twenty people is enough to get the sense of a life, and of just how varied the lives of poets (or anybody) can really be. The biographies come from Volume One and Volume Two of the Poem a Day series. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 7/5/24: Tonight, I devote an hour to wondering how we talk about childhood and memory, how we live with memory and meaning, how we perceive time and recollect the most vivid events of our lives. For me, music is inseparable from all of this, and I play a few songs in this episode: Mother Nature’s Son (The Beatles), High Hopes (Pink Floyd), T. S. Eliot reading from East Coker, the Molto Adagio from String Quartet #15/Op. 132 (Beethoven), Mishima (Closing) (Philip Glass), American Beauty (Thomas Newman), the Andante Adagio from String Quartet #3: Reflections on my childhood/Childhood Fantasia in New England (Alan Hovhaness). This episode grew out of a conversation with Tom Hart at Sequential Artists Workshop, and I dedicate to him. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 6/18/24: This is the seventh in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. I continue with Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet, which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass. Previous readings from Whitman biographies are here. Tonight, Zweig discusses the nature of Whitman's notebooks and journals up through the 1855 publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass. The necessity Whitman felt, even in his notebooks, for addressing a public audience, and the influence of prose (Carlye, Emerson, the King James Bible) on his revolutionary poetry, all offer great insight into how Whitman was able to achieve what he did. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I’ve also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 06/06/2024: Tonight, I share two stories from the Shoah, or Holocaust. The first is about the Sonderkommando, those prisoners forced to do the most devastating work in the concentration camps. During a 2015 Fresh Air interview with László Nemes and Géza Röhrig about their 2015 film, Son of Saul, a brief story about an actual Sonderkommando member is told. It remains one of the most overwhelming minutes that I have ever heard. In the second part, I read from Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2006 book, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. The book is Mendelsohn’s attempt to discover what happened to six members of his family who were murdered in the Holocaust, and the section I read from is about the difficulty of truly entering the mind and situation of a sixteen year-old girl, who is rounded up with a thousand other Jews, and murdered. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I’ve also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 5/20/24: Tonight, after a long hiatus, we return to Norse myth with the story of Sigurd’s killing of the dragon, Fafnir. Couched in a much longer narrative that contains shape-shifting, war, revenge, brief appearances by Odin and Loki, and finally Sigurd’s ability to hear the language of birds and animals, it is a brilliant and vivid example of storytelling in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I read from the two great sources of the story, the Volsung Saga (in the Jesse Byock translation) and Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda (in the Anthony Faulkes translation). I also discuss the history of the story, and its reworking in the Nibelungenlied, and Wagnerian opera. Listen to the other Great Myths here. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 5/8/24: Tonight, I read fourteen poems from Ted Hughes's 1970 collection, Crow. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that read are: A Childish Prank (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here)Crow's First LessonCrow TyrannosaurusCrow & the BirdsCrowegoCrow Blacker than EverCrow's Last StandCrow & the SeaFragments of an Ancient TabletNotes for a Little PlayLovesongLittlebloodCrow's CourtshipCrow's Song about God This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in August of 2021, which included fewer poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bate's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/17/24: Tonight, I read a handful of poems on modern life—whatever “modern” might mean in words spanning the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. In many of the poems we hear the complaint of every age, that “the world has never been so bad.” In others, descriptions of the suburbs are enough, or of car culture, or of how we get our news or even begin to live with stories of atrocity and war. Some poems ask us to pay attention to the work and details of everyday life, others wonder if we shouldn’t look to past poets for wisdom and guidance. If a “modern” mindset means anything, it seems to mean proliferation and flux, a sense of not being settled. The poems I read are: Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), “In Goya’s greatest scenes”Kathleen Jamie (1962- ), “The Way We Live”Laurie Sheck (1953- ), “Headlights”Derek Mahon (1941-2020), “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford”Ted Kooser (1939- ), “Late February”Philip Larkin (1922-1985), “Here” Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), “New Mexican Mountain”T. E. Hulme (1883-1917), “Image”Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), “Editor Whedon”Walt Whitman (1819-1892), “The blab of the pave”William Wordsworth (1770-1850), “London 1802”Mary Robinson (1758-1800), “A London Summer Morning”Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), “A Description of the Morning” William Shakespeare (1564-1616), “The queen, my lord, is dead”R. S. Thomas (1913-2000), “Suddenly” You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I’ve also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/3/24: Tonight, I interview the poet, novelist, and translator, Amit Majmudar. You can find a full list of his books ⁠here⁠, but we spend most of our time talking about his 2018 translation of the Bhagavad Gita, ⁠Godsong⁠. Along the way, we also get his take on many of the preoccupations of this podcast: how a life devoted to creativity, religion, family, and an awareness of history and tradition can still be maintained in this strange time of ours. His book recommendations at the end are: John D. Smith’s abridged translation of the ⁠Mahabharata⁠S. Radhakrishnan's translation of the principal UpanishadsThe Princeton edition of the ⁠Ramayana⁠   Roberto Calasso’s ⁠Ardor⁠ You can support Human Voices Wake Us ⁠here⁠, or 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. I’ve also edited a handful of books in the ⁠S4N Pocket Poems⁠ series. Email me at ⁠humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com⁠. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 3/15/24: Tonight, I read eleven poems from Ted Hughes's 1979 collection, Remains of Elmet. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from Remains of Elmet are: Light Falls through ItselfCrown Point Pensioners "Six years into her posthumous life"These Grasses of LightWallsHeatherRemains of ElmetWhere the Millstone of SkyThe Ancient Briton Lay under His RockHeptonstallCock Crows (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here) This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in April of 2021, which included only seven poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bate's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 3/3/24: Tonight, I read from a handful of what I call “visionary” poems. After an introductory section of familiar nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets, I go back to the sources of those, which are found in religious scripture and myth: W. B. Yeats: “The Second Coming”T. S. Eliot: sections from The Waste Land and “East Coker”Walt Whitman: the first section of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”William Wordsworth: from the thirteenth book of The PreludeWilliam Blake: from his long poem MiltonThe first chapter of Ezekiel (from the JPS audio Tanakh)A speech from Euripides’s Bacchae, tr. William ArrowsmithPart of the eleventh book of the Bhagavad-Gita, tr. by Amit Majmudar in his GodsongI close the episode with a reading that will not surprise long-time listeners. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 2/19/24: Tonight, I read eleven essential poems by the American poet Wallace Stevens (1879-1955). All of them can be found in his Collected Poems. I also read from his letters, and the essay about Stevens at The Poetry Foundation. The poems are: Anecdote of the JarThe Snow ManSix Significant LandscapesAnecdote of Men by the ThousandHow to Live. What to DoGallant ChâteauBouquet of Belle ScavoirThe Poem that Took the Place of a MountainThe Planet on the TableFinal Soliloquy of the Interior ParamourThe Idea of Order at Key West (read by Stevens) The biographies of Stevens that I mention are the two-volumes by Joan Richardson, and The Whole of Harmonium, by Paul Mariani. The 1988 documentary on Stevens, part of the Voices and Visions series, is also a great introduction. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 2/7/24: Tonight, I read six poems from Ted Hughes's 1983 collection, River. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from River are: October Salmon (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here)Four March WatercoloursSalmon EggsAn August SalmonThe RiverIn the Dark Violin of the Valley This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in September of 2021, which included only three poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bate's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/31/24: Tonight, as a companion to last episode of poems on being a child, I read a handful of poems about being a parent: “Morning Song,” by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)“Child Crying Out,” by Louise Glück (1943-2023)“First Snow” read by Louise Glück (audio from here)“This Be the Verse,” by Philip Larkin (1922-1985)“Lucinda Matlock,” by Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950)“On My First Sonne” (Epigrammes XLV), by Ben Jonson (1572-1637)“The Pomegranate,” by Eavan Boland (1944-2020)“Surprized by joy – impatient as the wind,” by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)“Eden Rock,” by Charles Causley (1924-2007)“My Young Mother,” by Jane Cooper (1924-2007)“Waiting,” by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)from King Lear, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)“Life after Death,” by Ted Hughes (1930-1998) You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/19/24: Tonight, I read a handful of poems about childhood. How does poetry capture our earliest memories, and how can it express the act of remembering itself, of nostalgia? The poems are: The Pennycandystore Beyond the El, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021)"Other echoes/Inhabit the garden," from Burnt Norton, by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)Squarings #40, by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England, by Denise Levertov (1923-1997)Those Winter Sundays, by Robert Hayden (1913-1980)Learning to Read, by Laurie Sheck (1953-)My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)The Latin Lesson, by Eavan Boland (1944-2020)Fern Hill, by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)The Leaving, by Brigit Pegeen Kelly (1951-2016)The Month of June: 13 1/2, by Sharon Olds (1942-)Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio, by James Wright (1927-1980)"I'm ceded" (#508), by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)Soap Suds, by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/10/24: Tonight, I read seven poems from Ted Hughes's collection of farming poems, Moortown Diary, first published in 1978. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from Moortown Diary are: RainBringing in new couplesSurpriseRavensFebruary 17thBirth of RainbowA monument This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in January of 2021, which included only five poems. I've used the opportunity to read from Hughes's preface and notes to the book, as well as a letter written to his friend, Keith Sagar about the collection. I also include audio of Hughes from the BBC/British Library recordings collected as The Spoken Word: Ted Hughes, Poems and Short Stories. You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/1/24: Tonight, a cold has forced me to hand over the episode almost entirely to some of the greatest music ever written. Here are excerpts of my favorite pieces from Ludwig van Beethoven (1750-1827). It’s hard to think of music that is more passionate, introspective, uplifting, brooding, mournful, and joyous. The sources for the music I use are: Excerpts from the Ninth Symphony/Op. 125 is conducted by Eugen Duvier.Excerpts from the Piano Sonatas (#1 and #2/Op. 2, #8/Op. 13, #13 and #14/Op. 27 #15/Op. 28, #17/Op. 31, #21/Op. 53, #22/Op. 54, #27/Op. 90), and the Fifth Piano Concerto/Op. 73 come from the complete recordings by Claudio Arrau.The excerpt from the Op. 70 “Ghost” Trio, from the Trio Bell’Arte.Excerpts from String Quartet 13/Op. 130 and String Quartet 15/Op. 132 come from the recordings by the Quartteto Italiano. Excerpts from Missa Solemnis, Op. 123, is conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.The excerpt from Robert Greenberg lecture comes from his Great Courses set on the Piano Sonatas.  You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 12/21/23: What is it like for your country to declare war, and then wait for it, and then live through it? Tonight, I read only a small sampling from Norman Longmate's How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War. The book focuses on the home front in Britain and the experiences, mostly, of everyday civilians, the elderly, women, and children: How do you live through the Blitz? How do parents say goodbye to their children, millions of whom were relocated from urbans areas to the countryside, to protect them from attack? How do you eat when food is rationed, what kind of social life is possible, and was the BBC allowed to be funny (spoiler alert: yes)? You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 12/13/23: There’s a certain lesson I’ve learned from sports figures, poets, and critics, and I was reminded of it while watching Bradley Cooper’s new movie about Leonard Bernstein, Maestro. What does it mean that the attention and opportunities that so many aspiring musicians and conductors dream of, only ever lands on a few people, like Bernstein? And what does it mean that the earliest dreams of actors—which include being able to portray figures like Bernstein, and to recreate and embody defining moments in their lives—also only ever lands on a few people, like Bradley Cooper? While talking about this, I play an excerpt from a New Yorker interview with Bradley Cooper from last month. I end the episode with a small question for all of us: considering how easy it is nowadays to find a new book, movie, podcast, or album, has anyone out there developed a disciplined way of saying no, of stopping, of creating time when absolutely nothing of culture can intrude? You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or 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. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 11/13/23: Tonight, I talk about our attachment to music as teenagers and adults, and the lessons that loving music—and finding meaning in musicians’ life stories—can teach us. First, I read two passages from Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids. Those parts on her early life with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, before either of them were well-known, are incredibly moving. Next, I talk about my attachment to the band Mazzy Star, and then read from a listener’s email about seeing the band Living Colour perform live for the first time, after years of listening to their music. Finally, I read a few passages from Words Without Music, a memoir by the composer Philip Glass. If you have a story of your own to share about art, creativity, religion or myth, email me about it and it could appear in an upcoming episode. 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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 10/30/23: Tonight, I read a handful of poems about autumn: Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), from “The Burning of the Leaves”Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), “The leaves are falling; so am I”Louise Glück (1943-2023), “All Hallows”John Keats (1795-1821), from “To Autumn”W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), “The Wild Swans at Coole”Vernon Watkins (1906-1967), from “For a Wine Festival” and from “The Tributary Seasons”Frances Cornford (1886-1960), “All Souls”Edward Thomas (1878-1917), “Digging”Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), “A Sheep Fair” 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 ⁠humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com⁠. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support