Earlier this year, I thought it was possible to supplement this podcast with one weekly (and shorter) additional reading ⁠over at Substack⁠; for many reasons, that ambition proved impossible to maintain. Since an illness has kept me from recording a new episode this week, I thought it worthwhile collecting those six weeks of shorter readings……

In the first part of tonight’s episode, I read from ⁠Peter Robb’s M⁠, a biography of the painter ⁠Caravaggio⁠ (1571-1610). Through a discussion of two of his paintings which depict decapitation, we can understand how, in Caravaggio’s early career, he was able to paint directly from life; but when he went on the run to……

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 does prose require that poetry does not, and vice-versa, especially when the accounts we have are separated by centuries of historical change, and religious conversion?  In this……

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 Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet⁠⁠, which focuses on the years preceding the 1855 publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Here, Zweig talks about Whitman in the……

In the first part of tonight’s episode, I read from Andrew Solomon’s ⁠Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, & the Search for Identity⁠, where Solomon talks about musical prodigies and the difficulties they face as children and adults. In the second part, I read one of the most powerful pieces of poetry to come out……

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 T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Williams is perhaps best known for never becoming an expatriate, and instead living most of his life as a family doctor in Rutherford, New Jersey. His……

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, and ⁠you can read his obituary here⁠. A friend introduced me to Ferlinghetti’s book in high school, and I’ve always associated him with my earliest reading, and my……

An episode from 12/7/22: Tonight, we enter into the early years of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), from his birth in the village of Zundert in the Netherlands, to his time in the Borinage mining region of Belgium. It was there, at the age of twenty-seven—and after years of personal and professional failures—that he hit bottom……

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 own episode. ⁠The first Tarantula collection is here⁠, but tonight I talk about: Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and……

Tonight, I read ten essential poems from one of the great and most public poets of the last seventy years, Seamus Heaney (1939-2013). It isn’t hard to come by details of Heaney’s life, but ⁠Stepping Stones⁠ (where Heaney is interviewed at length in what amounts to an autobiography), is a good place to start. His……

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’s Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet⁠, which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass. Here, Zweig talks about the questions surrounding Whitman’s sexuality, and the apparent……

An episode from 4/17/21: These “Advice” episodes (originally called The Poet Speaks) will each feature a small collection of quotations on creativity from various artists, poets, and writers.  Tonight, the main quotations come from Serge Bramly’s ⁠Leonardo: The Artist & the Man⁠, where he writes that da Vinci “was always less concerned with the finishing……

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 Whitman: The Making of the Poet⁠, which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass. Here, Zweig talks about Whitman’s earliest years in Long Island, Brooklyn, and……

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 Naturalist⁠ (1966). Following the poems is a reading from interviews Heaney gave on the writing of Death of a Naturalist, taken from Dennis O’Driscoll’s ⁠⁠Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney⁠⁠….…

What makes a story or prayer or poem last? What circumstances can lead one monarch to order the execution of another? And why, over the past twenty years, was Mary Oliver the best-selling poet in America? Tonight’s episode is another three-parter: Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also……

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 no longer makes this episode #100, and while you can still hear me getting used the format and using my voice, it’s still fun to hear the story of how this……

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 Whitman: The Making of the Poet⁠, which focuses on the years preceding the publication of Leaves of Grass. Here, Zweig talks about the books Whitman learned from the most, even……

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 everything I went through from 1993-1997. I spend the first part of this episode talking about high school, and how much my writing from this time is……

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 were Begotten.” One of the great joys of Celtic myth are stories of relay-race metamorphoses, where two humans chase each other while changing into many different animal forms. The story……

Tonight, we look into libraries and learning: 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,……