An episode from 7/3/21: Tonight, with the help of a few quotations, I ask: should poets and writers be able to cook themselves a decent meal, or is a life of the mind the best we can expect? Is it a relief to hear Beethoven admit that everything he did, outside of music, was wrong and stupid? Is it useful to tell younger poets that they should find anything to do other than poetry, since it will never fulfill them? The main quotations discussed here 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. 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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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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