An episode from 1/31/21: The American writer Laurie Sheck (born 1953) was the first poet that I read extensively from on Human Voices Wake Us. Her 1996 book, The Willow Grove, remains one of the best single collections of poetry I’ve ever read, especially where Sheck remembers her childhood, learning to read, first going to museums, and so much else. And for someone like me, for whom the mystique and power of driving and listening to the radio (or podcasts, now) is so intense, a poem like “Headlights” sums up years of my life. The entire book feels like one long poem, and even the thirteen poems here, when heard together, have the wholeness of a continuous story: The Stockroom Living Color from the Book of Persephone, pt. 4 Learning to Read Mummy Morning Walk Sycamore The Leper Colony View of the Asylum Garden Headlights Streets Cypresses Sea 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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