Tim Miller

Anthology: Poems on Modern Life (new episode) – Human Voices Wake Us

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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

1. Anthology: Poems on Modern Life (new episode) 56:20
2. An Interview with Amit Majmudar (new episode) 01:32:37
3. Ted Hughes: 11 Poems from "Remains of Elmet" (new episode) 45:05

Where my work has appeared recently:

Medieval World Culture & Conflict #10: Review of Andrew Schell’s study, Beowulf: A Poem.

Medieval World Culture & Conflict #9: Essay: “When Translations Were King: How the Gift of a Greek Manuscript Changed Medieval Spain” (A supplement to the essay, with a further history of the Greek medical text in question, is here)

Ancient History #45: Essay: The Woman of Vix (on the Celtic Iron Age burial at Vix)

The Basilisk Tree: 1 poem: Shakespeare (podcast version here)

The Basilisk Tree: 1 poem: Pythagoras (podcast version here)

The Basilisk Tree: Interviewed by Bryan Helton

Ancient History #43: Essay: Putting Osiris to Bed (on ‘Germinating Osiris’ bricks)

The Basilisk Tree: 1 poem: Leonardo (podcast version here)

Amethyst: 1 poem: Viśvakarmān

Medieval World Culture & Conflict #4: Essay: “Living on the Edge: The Life of Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir”

Amethyst: 1 poem: “Jacob”

Jewish Journal: 2 Essays: The Leaky Boat, Walking with God in the World

Jewish Journal: 6 poems: A Ploughed Field, Train, Moses, Bezalel, Abraham’s Father, The Water Waited

The Journal #61: 2 poems from the plague of 1666: The Harvest of 1665, Rich Houses

Londongrip: 1 poem: Caedmon Comes to Singing

Crossways: 1 poem from School of Night: Mr Cassian’s 120th Dream

Amethyst: 2 poems from School of Night: Mr Cassian’s 51st Dream, Mr Cassian’s 54th Dream

Jewish Literary Journal: 1 poem from School of Night: Mr Cassian’s Good Friend, Albert Einstein

Southword #37: 3 poems from School of Night: Mr Cassian, Heavy Judger of Men, Mr Cassian’s Beeping Garage, Mr Cassian Gets Self-Conscious

Isacoustic: 7 poems from School of Night: Mr Cassian’s 105th Dream, Mr Cassian’s 156th Dream, Mr Cassian’s 159th Dream, Mr Cassian Shares the Park with Other Parents, Mr Cassian’s Snotty Eyes, Mr Cassian Flees the Scene of an Accident, Mr Cassian’s Good Friend, the Roman Soldier

Cutthroat #24: 1 story from School of Night: The Frog (nominated for a Pushcart Prize)

Bold+Italic: 1 story from School of Night: Isis in Old Age

4 Poems from Columbine: The Mother, The Mother at the Salon, The Two of Them, Infatuation

WWII History, April 2019: essay: The Vermehren Betrayal

Renaissance Magazine #120: essay: Monks & Vikings at the Edge of the World

Military Heritage, March 2019: essay: The Battle of Pydna, 168 BC 

90.5 WESA: Interview with NPR on Bone Antler Stone

WWII Quarterly, Winter 2019: essay: When the Blitz Came to Bath

Renaissance Magazine #118: essay: The Black Death Comes to Bohemia

The Wisdom Daily: essay: The Loneliness of Isidore of Seville

Voices Behind the Words: interview

Military Heritage, July 2018: essay: The Roman Siege of Jerusalem

WWII History, June 2018: essay: Henry Kissinger’s World War Two

Amethyst: essay: Risking the Sacred

Seattle Book Review: essay: Generous Chance Encounters in Publishing

Amethyst: 1 poem: Sanctuaries

The Big Windows Review: 1 poem: The Seeress of Vix *Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award

Amethyst: 2 poems: Esus, Sucellus

Orbis: 2 poems: New Families Arrive in Britain, Bronze Offerings in the Water

Cider Press Review: 1 poem: Old Man’s Shed

Isacoustic: 3 poems: The Brough of Birsay, St. Magnus Cathedral, When I High, When I Saw the Deep

The High Window: 6 poems: Painted Stags Clermont-Ferrand, The Sun Sets into the Sea, Axes, A Song to Stone, Song of Trees, The Seafarer

WWII History, December 2017: essay: The Scholarly Spies of the French Resistance

Military Heritage, November 2017: essay: The Battle of Crecy

Crannóg: 1 poem: Cauldron & Drink

Cumberland River Review: 2 burial poems: Oleneostrovskii Mogilnik Cemetery, Skateholm Cemetery *Nominated for a Best of the Net Award

Underfoot Poetry: 6 bog poems: Last Meal, Haraldskaer Woman, Tollund Man, Kayhausen Boy, Damendorf Man, Grauballe Man, Lindow Man

Poethead: 4 goddess poems: Song to Sequana, Song to Sulis, Song to Nehalennia, Looking for Nerthus

Cider Press Review: 1 poem: Missing Child

The Journal (Wales): 3 burial poems: Long Barrows, Tormarton Ditch, To the Air

The Basil O’Flaherty: 4 poems: Unfinished Michelangelo, Kafka’s Sister, The Painted Caves: Chauvet, Lascaux, Altamira, A Disciple of Pythagoras Wins a Chariot Race

Albatross: 2 poems: Migrations at the End of the Ice Age, Ring of Brodgar

Concho River Review, fall 2016: 1 poem: Neighborhood

Londongrip: 2 burial poems: Near Copenhagen, The Amesbury Archer

Military Heritage: Constantine the Great & the Battle of the Milvian Bridge

The High Window: 3 poems: Star Carr, Fire Houses, Pytheas in the Shetlands

World War Two History: essay: Exhausted Caravan, the 1940 Exodus from Paris

Poethead: 6 poems: Robert Oppenheimer, Horses from Orkney, Daedalus & Icarus, Skara Brae, Bone Antler Stone (Orkney Museum), Cuween Chambered Cairn

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: 1 poem: Winter Crash

Literary Juice: Odin & Baldr

Military Heritage, May 2016: Alexander the Great & the Battle of the Granicus

Living Orkney, May 2016: essay: A Tourist in the Heart of Orkney

Juked: story: One Time People

Concho River Review, fall 2014: essay: Blindness, War & History

Meat for Tea, March 2014: story: Adult Conversation

Bitter Oleander, vol. 20 #1: story: Flew Away for Number Three

Foliate Oak: story: The Lake