Human Voices Wake Us
Episodes
Anthology: Love Poems from the Last Four Centuries
08 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/18/23: Tonight I ask the question: what is love, and what is love poetry? Are poems about family and friendship love poems, just as ...
The Great Myths #22: The Story of Ragnarok in the Norse Eddas
23 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/23/22: How did the Viking Norse tell a story as important as Ragnarok (the end of the world) in poetry, and then in prose? What doe...
Give Me Another Tarantula
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/29/22: "Give Me a Tarantula" is shorthand for a scattering of thoughts on a handful of things that can't fill their o...
Robert Lowell: 10 Essential Poems
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/4/22: Tonight, I read ten essential poems from the American poet, Robert Lowell (1917-1977). Lowell was perhaps the last American p...
What Do Writers & Actors Have in Common?
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/4/22: Tonight, I talk about creativity and wonder what actors and writers have in common. In the most general sense of finding sola...
True Horror
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/27/22: Tonight, I talk about our love horror and true crime, and ask: what makes a story truly frightening, instead of just enterta...
The Great Myths #21: The Story of Creation in the Norse Eddas
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/19/22: In this second episode on Norse Mythology, I read from the creation myths found in the poem, “Voluspa,” found in the Poe...
Old Friends
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/11/22: Tonight I talk about a dear friend from my youth, who made a great impact on my late teens and early twenties. Somehow he ...
Ted Hughes: 12 Essential Poems
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/3/22: Over the course of forty years, Ted Hughes (1930-1998) wrote some of the best poetry of the twentieth (or any) century. Tonig...
Ted Hughes: Selected Poems
01 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/31/22: Tonight, I collect all of Ted Hughes’s poetry that I have recorded and posted here over the past year. They can all be foun...
Robinson Jeffers: 10 Essential Poems
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/23/22: What twentieth-century American poet devoted so much time to the environment, and to humanity’s place in it, other than Rob...
The Great Myths #20: Introducing Norse Myth & Reading the Voluspa
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/15/22: For the next year or more, my series on The Great Myths will focus on Norse mythology. Tonight I introduce the subject and re...
Stephen King's Great Novel of Parenthood & Grief
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/7/22: Tonight I spend an hour talking about Stephen King’s 1983 novel, Pet Sematary. The anxieties attached to being a paren...
William Carlos Williams: 11 Essential Poems
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/15/22: Tonight, I read eleven essential poems from the American poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). In the same generation as...
Give Me a Tarantula
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 8/30/22: “Give Me a Tarantula” is a scattering of thoughts on: Old Norse & Old English Edward Hopper Kids five Going on S...
The Great Myths #19: Farewell to the Celtic Myths, & One Last Story
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 8/22/22: Tonight, we leave the Celtic myths with an overview of all the episodes devoted to it, The Great Myths #8-18 (which can be...
First Person: The Atomic Bomb
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 8/4/22: Tonight, listen to my four-part episode on the atomic bomb, from its development, to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a...
Witches in America, Napoleon in Egypt, & the Invention of the Printed Book
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 7/19/22: Sometimes it’s worth just reveling in the way a great historian tells a story, or details and invention, or brings us face-...
Emily Dickinson
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 7/11/22: How do we find our way past the image of Emily Dickinson as a distant, unapproachable, recluse? One way is to read a book lik...
The Voice of Toni Morrison
26 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 6/26/22: We are incredibly lucky that, in the novelist Toni Morrison (1931-2019), we had that rare thing: a great writer who also achi...
The Great Myths #18: Celtic Myth and Scholarship
19 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 6/19/22: We’re lucky that all things Celtic are embedded so deeply into popular culture. Yet every now and then it’s worth sweepin...
Advice from Seamus Heaney // James Joyce's "Araby"
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 6/8/22: Tonight, we hear from two of the greatest twentieth century Irish writers. In the first half of the episode, I read from Denni...
Notes from the Grid: Simple Awareness
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 5/25/22: Tonight, I conclude with the last in a five-part series called Notes from the Grid. (A print version of NFTG has since ...
Notes from the Grid: To Criticize the Critic
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 5/2/22: Tonight, I continue my five-part series called Notes from the Grid. (A print version of NFTG has since been published.) It ask...
Walt Whitman's Death Poetry
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/14/22: “Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?” Walt Whitman asks. “I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to di...
Walt Whitman's Love Poetry // Whitman & Sex
10 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/9/22: Is Whitman our great poet of love, or of longing? Is there a difference? In this episode, I share my favorite of his love poem...
Advice from Toni Morrison, Richard Wilbur, John Berryman, T. S. Eliot // Whitman's Earliest Critics
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/6/22: Another two-part episode. In the first, we hear from Toni Morrison about the use of anger in writing novels; from the poet Ric...
Anthology: Poems by Lowell, Clare, Barbauld, Finch, Spenser // First Person: Eudora Welty & Helen Keller
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/29/22: Another two-part episode. The first is a reading of five poems, and my favorites from this batch are Robert Lowell’s “Bob...
Loneliness, pt2 // Shakespeare, Sex & Sonnets
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/25/22: Why have I always assumed that lovers of poetry want to talk to other people about it? In the first part of this episode, I c...
The Great Myths #17: Tales of the Elders of Ireland (Celtic)
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/22/22: One of my goals for The Great Myths has been to show how strange, even off-putting, the stories that we know and revere reall...
"That Jane Goodall Tramp"
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/14/22: What happened during Jane Goodall’s famous appearance in Gary Larson’s The Far Side in 1987, and what can it teach ...
First Person: Funeral Home Director // Telemarketer
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/8/22: How would you talk about your job, if someone came around asking? Tonight, we hear from Beverly Valentine, a Funeral Home Dire...
The Earliest Bookstores I Remember // Picasso's "Guernica"
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/2/22: At a listener’s request, the first part of this episode is devoted to the earliest bookstores I remember, from childhood thr...
Advice from Joan Didion, Stanley Kunitz, Billy Collins & Alice Munro
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/25/22: How important is it for an author to be associated with a certain place—Seamus Heaney and Ireland, Dickens and London, Robe...
Jealousy, Part 2
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/21/22: Most people will tell you that jealousy is a destructive mindset to get lost in, but tonight I wonder under what circumstance...
The Great Myths #16: The Story of Taliesin (Celtic)
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/14/22: One way that storytellers have always illustrated the radical nature of creativity has been to give an unusual talent to chil...
Anthology: Poems by William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Louise Bogan, Anne Bradstreet, Henry Vaughan
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/4/22: Here are five more poems going back to 1600 or so. Louise Bogan realizes mysticism isn’t it, anymore than hedonism; Elizabe...
Anthology: Poems by Eavan Boland, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wordsworth, Milton, Philip Sidney
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/4/22: Here are five more poems going back to 1600 or so. Eavan Boland talks parenting and childhood; Wordsworth calls on Milton, and...
Walt Whitman's Mystical Poetry
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/19/22: From the opening line of the Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman announced that his great theme was unity: “I celebrate myself,/A...
Standing on Two Feet & the Evolution of Language
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/24/22: How did the evolutionary ability to stand on two feet, freeing our hands for all kinds of practical and creative activities, ...
Seamus Heaney's Origin Story
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/21/22: How does a great poet come into the world? What is their childhood like, their education? What was the first poetry they knew...
Anthology: Poems by William Carlos Williams, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Brontë, Alexander Pope, Roy Fisher
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/18/22: Our anthology series presents a handful of poems from the past five centuries. How much or how little has our language change...
The Great Myths #15: The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne (Celtic)
15 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/15/22: Tonight we read from perhaps the great love story from the Middle Ages, since without it there would be no romance of Tristan...
First Person: Rome (AD 64) and America (1832)
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/4/22: What can we learn from the Roman author Seneca's thoughts on education, speaking to us from the middle of the first centur...
Anthology: Is Poetry Important?, & Poems by Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, Virgil, R. S. Thomas
01 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What can we say when we're told that poetry no longer matters, especially when it's another poet who says it? The first eleven minutes of this...
Anthology: Poems by Amy Lowell, Thomas Hardy, John Donne, Christopher Marlowe, William Cowper
25 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/25/21: Tonight, we hear five poems from four centuries: Amy Lowell on unrequited love, Thomas Hardy bringing in the twentieth centu...
Ted Hughes: 5 Last Poems
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/21/21: Tonight, I read five poems from Ted Hughes’s last book, Birthday Letters (1998). This is the book where Hughes finally add...
Anthology: Poems by Edgar Lee Masters, Tennyson, Mary Robinson, Henry Wotton, and Walter Raleigh
18 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/18/21: Tonight, I read five poems going back four hundred years. Edgar Lee Masters channels the unsung poet and victim of horrendou...
Ted Hughes: A Handful of Short Poems from the 1970s
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/7/21: Tonight, I read eleven short poems from a handful of books that Ted Hughes published during the 1970s. As I talk about in the...
First Person: London, c. 1615
05 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/5/21: Tonight, I read from chapter six of Peter Ackroyd’s history of early seventeenth-century England, Civil War (or Rebellio...
First Person: Pompeii (AD 79) & San Francisco (AD 1906)
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/19/21, where I read about two disasters separated by nearly two thousand years: the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in the year 79, and th...
How Did Picasso Do It?
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/16/21: Tonight, I read from a few books on Pablo Picasso, where he talks about how the power behind his own paintings, and his huge...
Louise Glück: Poems from “The Wild Iris” & "Ararat"
13 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/13/21: Tonight, I read eight poems from Louise Glück's 1992 collection, The Wild Iris. Following these are an episode from Mar...
William Wordsworth: Immortality Ode, and 3 Other Poems
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/4/21: Tonight, I read four of William Wordsworth's greatest poems. On some days, it's only rolling along with Wordsworth...
Ted Hughes Responds to Fame
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/2/21: Tonight, I read a letter written by the British poet Ted Hughes, to a friend and critic, Al Alvarez, in November of 1971. At ...
The Great Myths #14: The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (Celtic)
30 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/30/21: In this seventh episode on Celtic mythology, I review one of the greatest surviving stories in the tradition, Togail Bruidne...
Ted Hughes's Origin Story
24 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/24/21: Tonight, I read from the letters of Ted Hughes, on how he came to discover a love for poetry, the natural world, as well as ...
Beethoven on His Deathbed
17 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/17/21: The death Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) came after a long series of illnesses. By then, friends and admirers and hangers-...
Poetry & Education in Eighth Century England
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/14/21: What does culture and education mean when literacy, let alone the owning of books, is so rare? Tonight, I read two chapters ...
Working
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/11/21: Tonight, a small episode where I talk about working, and about empathy and sympathy for those who live doing work they do no...
First Person: A Waitress in Chicago in the 1960s
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/1/21: A reading from one of my favorite books, Studs Terkel's Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel...
Poem: Unfinished Michelangelo
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/28/21: Tonight, I read a poem of mine called "Unfinished Michelangelo." The entire poem takes up Michelangelo's many u...
Loneliness
27 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/27/21: In what may be my favorite episode of this podcast, I talk about loneliness: is it really so bad, and is easy sociability rea...
Walt Whitman: “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun”
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/21/21: Tonight I read Walt Whitman's poem, "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun," first published in the 1865 collection D...
2 Poems for the Holocaust
19 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/19/21: Are some topics not fit for poetry and art? Does the intentional crafting of atrocity and genocide into stanzas, scenes, rhym...
Walt Whitman Affirms the World
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/13/21: Tonight, I read a small section of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." For those who want to find it for themselve...
Poems from "Bone Antler Stone"
12 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/12/21: Tonight, I gather together all of the poems I've recorded from my 2018 book of poems from prehistory, Bone Antler Stone. ...
The Great Myths #13: Oisin in the Otherworld
11 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/10/21: In this sixth episode on Celtic mythology, I read the famous story of the wanderings of Oisin/Oisín in the Irish Otherworld,...
First Person: Vermont, 1940
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/7/21: Tonight, I read from an interview conducted by the Federal Writer's Project, with a man working the late shift at an all-n...
The Great Myths #12: Queen Medb of Connacht
04 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/4/21: In this fifth episode on Celtic mythology, I read the famous "pillow talk" between Queen Medb and King Ailill of Con...
First Person: Visiting a Poor Poet in Paris, 1895
02 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 9/2/21: A reading of Harry Kessler's diary from July 10, 1895, visiting the French poet, Paul Verlaine. From the English translati...
The Great Myths #11: How Cuchulainn Got His Name
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 8/27/21: In this fourth episode on Celtic mythology, I read the story of how the great Irish hero, Cúchulainn, got his name by replac...
First Person: Paris, 1785
26 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 8/25/21: Tonight, I read from Louis-Sébastien Mercier's Le Tableau de Paris. The translation is from Helen Simpson's 1933 sel...
James Garbarino on Violent Young Men
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 8/2/21: A reading from James Garbarino's 1999 book on violent young men, Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent & How We Can Sav...
Seamus Heaney: On "Seeing Things"
25 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 7/14/21: Tonight, I read and comment on interviews that Seamus Heaney gave on the writing of his 1991 book, Seeing Things. Perhaps sur...
Seamus Heaney: 13 Poems from "Seeing Things"
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 7/19/21: Tonight, I read 13 poems from Seamus Heaney's 1991 collection, and arguably his best single book of poetry, Seeing Things...
The Great Myths #10: The Book of Invasions (Celtic)
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 7/7/21: In this third episode on Celtic mythology, I read a summary of that massive work of poetry and prose that combined the efforts...
Advice from Beethoven, Joseph Campbell, W. S. Merwin, W. D. Snodgrass
04 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Advice from Flannery O'Connor, Jacques Barzun, Jean Guéhenno
27 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 6/26/21: These "Advice" episodes (originally called The Poet Speaks) will each feature a small collection of quotations on c...
Seamus Heaney: 3 Poems from "Wintering Out," & Interviews with Heaney
12 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 6/12/21: Tonight, I read three poems from Seamus Heaney's third collection, Wintering Out (1972): The Tollund Man Limbo First...
Seamus Heaney: 3 Poems from "Door into the Dark" & Interviews with Heaney
30 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 5/30/21: Tonight, I read three poems from Seamus Heaney's second collection, Door into the Dark (1969): Dream The Forge Bogla...
Seamus Heaney: 3 Poems from "Death of a Naturalist" & Interviews with Heaney
16 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 5/16/21: Tonight, I read three poems from one of the great literary debuts of the twentieth century, Seamus Heaney's Death of a Na...
Hart Crane to His Father
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 5/3/21: Tonight, I read a letter Hart Crane sent to his father in January of 1924. Outside of van Gogh's letters, I don't know...
Advice from Leonardo da Vinci, Conrad Aiken, & Others
25 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/17/21: These “Advice” episodes (originally called The Poet Speaks) will each feature a small collection of quotations on creativ...
Four Columbine Poems
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/19/21: While I was already out of high school for two years when Columbine happened on April 20, 1999, it still feels bound up with ...
Advice from Shakespeare, Robert Lowell, Philip Larkin, & Others
18 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/17/21: These “Advice” episodes (originally called The Poet Speaks) will each feature a small collection of quotations on creativ...
Jealousy
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/14/21: Along the lines of a previous long episode, "Stubbornness," I wonder aloud about the jealousy that creative people ...
Episode #100: A Belated Manifesto
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/8/21: Only six months after starting Human Voices Wake Us, I came to record episode #100. While some housecleaning and rearranging n...
The Greath Myths #9: The Many Metamorphoses of the Pig Keepers (Celtic)
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/5/21: In this second episode on Celtic mythology, I read the story "The Quarrel of the Two Pig-keepers and how the Bulls wer...
Walt Whitman's Life #6: The Books He Read & the Scraps He Saved
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/1/21`: This is the sixth in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with Paul Zweig's Walt Wh...
Walt Whitman's Life #5: Building Houses & Writing Poems
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/28/21: This is the fifth in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with Paul Zweig's W...
Walt Whitman's Life #4: Whitman in 1849
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/23/21: This is the fourth in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with Paul Zweig's Wal...
Stubbornness
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/21/21: Tonight is a bit of an experiment in what might become a podcast diary/autobiography. I begin with a poem I wrote when I was ...
Walt Whitman's Life #3: Whitman & Sex
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/17/21: This is the third in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with Paul Zweig'...
Walt Whitman's Life #2: Early Politics, the Opera & Theater
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/9/21: This is the second in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I continue with Paul Zweig's W...
The Great Myths #8: The Dream of Óengus (Celtic)
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/8/21: Tonight on The Great Myths, we move on to Celtic mythology. To star, I read the short but representative story, "The Drea...
Walt Whitman's Life #1: Whitman's Long Foreground
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/4/21: This is the first in a series of readings from biographies of Walt Whitman. Tonight, I start with Paul Zweig's Walt Whi...
George Orwell on War
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 3/21/21: Tonight, I read from three newspaper articles by George Orwell on the outcry over the Allied bombings of German cities during...
The Great Myths #7: Herodotus on Egypt
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/26/21: In this last episode on Egyptian mythology, I read from Herodotus's account of Egyptian embalming and mummification pract...
So Long, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/23/21: Tonight, I read a few poems from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind. He died yesterday at the age of 101,...