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 cu...
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. I...
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 t...
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...
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 has...
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 ...
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...
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 favo...
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 peopl...
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-...
"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’...
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, w...
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 ...
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—S...
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 los...
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 cre...
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 my...
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 parent...
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 h...
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 fo...
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, th...
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 centuri...
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, sin...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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 Master...
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 ...
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 seve...
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: t...
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 ho...
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 ...
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 da...
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 frien...
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 ...
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...
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 ill...
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 o...
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...
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...
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." ...
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...
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 S...
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 o...
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....
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 ...
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 w...
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 Proj...
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 ta...
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 Fren...
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 gre...
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. Th...
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 Bo...
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 wr...
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 argu...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, Wint...
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, Doo...
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 tw...
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. O...
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 f...
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 happene...
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 f...
Jealousy
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 4/14/21: Along the lines of a previous long episode, "Stubbornness," I won...
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 episod...
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 Qu...
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....
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....
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...
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/auto...
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....
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....
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 ...
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. ...
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 outcr...
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 acc...
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...
The Great Myths #6: The Egyptian Book of the Dead
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/19/21: In this third episode on Egyptian mythology, I give a brief introduction to...
Walt Whitman: "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/17/21: Tonight, I read what is probably Walt Whitman's greatest single poem, &...
George Orwell on Poverty
13 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/13/21: George Orwell's 1933 memoir of voluntary poverty, Down and Out in Paris...
The Great Myths #5: Osiris
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 2/7/21: In this second episode on Egyptian mythology, I offer an overview of the sto...
Laurie Sheck: 13 Poems from "The Willow Grove"
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/31/21: The American writer Laurie Sheck (born 1953) was the first poet that I read...
The Great Myths #4: The Pyramid Texts of Ancient Egypt
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 1/28/21: Tonight, I read from perhaps the oldest surviving religious texts in the wo...
The Great Myths #3: Gilgamesh & the Flood
01 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/31/20: In this last episode on the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, I read of Gilg...
T. S. Eliot: “Preludes”
27 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 12/27/20: Tonight, I read one of T. S. Eliot's earliest poems, "Preludes&qu...
Andrew Solomon on Growing Up Deaf
28 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/28/20: Tonight, I read from Andrew Solomon’s book, Far From the Tree: Parents, ...
First Person: Minnesota at the Turn of the 20th Century
28 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/27/20: A reading from Studs Terkel’s book, American Dreams: Lost & Found...
Vermeer in Bosnia
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/11/20: Tonight, I read from Lawrence Weschler’s collection of essays, Vermeer i...
Walt Whitman’s Letter to the Parents of the Soldier Erastus Haskell
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/10/20: Tonight, I read Walt Whitman's 1863 letter to the parents of Erastus H...
George Orwell Down in the Mines
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/9/20: Tonight, I read one of the most moving sections of George Orwell’s 1937 b...
Robinson Jeffers: Poems from “Hungerfield”
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/5/2020: Tonight, I read a handful of poems from Robinson Jeffers's late colle...
Two Bits of Kafka's "Trial" for the Election
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 11/01/20: Tonight, I read two passages from Franz Kafka's The Trial: the fable k...
"It is so hard to die" - A Story of Depression from 1809
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/28/20: Tonight, I read from Stephen Ambrose's book on the Lewis & Clark e...
Robinson Jeffers: Six Last Poems
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/26/20: Tonight, I read six poems from the Last Poems of Robinson Jeffers (1887-19...
Ezra Pound’s Advice to a Young Poet
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/25/20: A reading from the poet W. S. Merwin’s memoir, The Mays of Ventadorn, wh...
Rereading “The English Patient”
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/23/20: Tonight, I read from Michael Ondaatje’s 1993 novel, The English Patient....
Poems for the Lonely & Creative Night
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An episode from 10/22/20: Tonight, I read five poems from a (as yet unpublished) book, School of Nig...