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First Person: Funeral Home Director // Telemarketer – Human Voices Wake Us
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 Director, and Jason Groth, a Telemarketer. They were interviewed more than twenty years ago for the 2000 book Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, and I have yet to find a boring interview in the entire book.
The book is clearly meant as an update to Studs Terkel's 1974 collection of interviews, Working. If anyone knows of any other books like these two, send me an email at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
Don’t forget to join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here. 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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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Other First Person & History episodes:
Beethoven on His Deathbed – Human Voices Wake Us
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-on sought out the composer in his last days. Tonight, I read Jan Swafford's account of Beethoven's death in his incredible biography, Beethoven: Anguish & Triumph.
Swafford’s book also includes one of the most moving details from any biography: that is, the supreme joy the composer experienced—even as he was wracked with illness and pain—when a complete set of Handel’s scores arrived by post. In his last days, Beethoven was able to sit up and swim through these books, hearing the music in his head.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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First Person: Pompeii (AD 79) & San Francisco (AD 1906) – Human Voices Wake Us
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 the earthquake that destroyed so much of San Francisco in 1906. My sources are a letter from Pliny the younger (read it here), where he describes Vesuvius and Pompeii, while an article by Jack London (read it here) takes us to San Francisco. I end with a reading of Laurie Sheck's poem "Pompeii," from her 2003 book, Black Series.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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Poetry & Education in Eighth Century England – Human Voices Wake Us
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 from Peter Ackroyd's book, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination. The first covers education in eighth-century England, and specifically the life of the Venerable Bede. The second is a brief look into Anglo-Saxon/Old English poetry, and its continued life and reverberations in English poetry to the present day.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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George Orwell on War – Human Voices Wake Us
An episode from 3/21/21: Tonight, I read from three newspaper articles by George Orwell on the outcry over Allied bombings of German cities during World War Two, and the aftermath of the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. Nobody writes about war like George Orwell, and it's refreshing to hear someone suggest that there's no point in trying to civilize, or be more humane, when it comes war.
The best edition of Orwell's essays is the huge Everyman's Library edition. For the pieces I've read tonight, they are:
As I Please #25, from May 19, 1944
As I Please #33, from July 14, 1944
You and the Atom Bomb, from October 19, 1945
An online collection of all of his As I Please articles can be found here.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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James Garbarino on Violent Young Men – Human Voices Wake Us
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 Save Them. Garbarino has written many other books on the topic, and this one especially can both continue to speak to us today, as well as seem like a time capsule before the internet went crazy, before smartphones, and before social media.
For these reasons & others, this episode is a good companion to only the third episode of Human Voices Wake Us, where I read from Mary Pipher's 1994 book on teenage girls, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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Mary Pipher’s “Reviving Ophelia” – Human Voices Wake Us
A reading from Mary Pipher’s 1994 book, “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls.”
Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001VCHPYA/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_api_i_hQFGFb3W306ZG
Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
I assume that the small amount of work presented in each episode constitutes fair use. Publishers, authors, or other copyright holders who would prefer to not have their work presented here can also email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com, and I will remove the episode immediately.
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Andrew Solomon on Growing Up Deaf – Human Voices Wake Us
A reading from Andrew Solomon’s book “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity.” This passage is taken from the chapter on the lives of deaf children, and their parents.
Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743236726
Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
I assume that the small amount of work presented in each episode constitutes fair use. Publishers, authors, or other copyright holders who would prefer to not have their work presented here can also email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com, and I will remove the episode immediately.
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message
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"It is so hard to die" – A Story of Depression from 1809 – Human Voices Wake Us
An episode from 10/28/20: Tonight, I read from Stephen Ambrose's book on the Lewis & Clark expedition, Undaunted Courage. I've chosen a scene from the end of the book, detailing the last night of Meriwether Lewis's life, in October of 1809.
Unlike his more famous companion, William Clark, Lewis suffered from what we today would call depression, and this passage is one of the saddest I know. I've always thought that those of us who can stand to hear stories like this should take the time to do so, to perhaps offer a bit of understanding that Clark was unable to find in life–and to perhaps look on those around us, suffering in the same way, with a kinder eye. Ambrose has remarked that he wept while writing it, and it was hard to keep myself from doing the same while reading it.
I should note the mistake I made when introducing the passage: this scene takes place not three days, but three years, after Lewis and Clark's return, but I haven't the heart to read this aloud again.
You can join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here.
Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
I assume that the small amount of work presented in each episode constitutes fair use. Publishers, authors, or other copyright holders who would prefer to not have their work presented here can also email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com, and I will remove the episode immediately.
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message
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First Person: The Atomic Bomb – Human Voices Wake Us
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, and after. I draw almost entirely from the words of those who were there. The full text of the quotations used here can be found in the blog versions of these podcasts.
The books, documentaries, and poems used to make these episodes are:
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes
Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, by Richard Rhodes
American Prometheus: The Triumph & Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds, by Peter Goodchild.
John Else's documentary, The Day After Trinity, can be watched here.
John Bradley's anthology of poets writing about the bomb is Atomic Ghosts: Poets Respond to the Atomic Age.
My poem about Robert Oppenheimer can be read here.
Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
Don’t forget to join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here. 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.
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support
First Person: Funeral Home Director // Telemarketer – Human Voices Wake Us
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 Director, and Jason Groth, a Telemarketer. They were interviewed more than twenty years ago for the 2000 book Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, and I have yet to find a boring interview in the entire book.
The book is clearly meant as an update to Studs Terkel's 1974 collection of interviews, Working. If anyone knows of any other books like these two, send me an email at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
Don’t forget to join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here. 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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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Anthology: Poems by Lowell, Clare, Barbauld, Finch, Spenser // First Person: Eudora Welty & Helen Keller – Human Voices Wake Us
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 “Bobby Delano,” an unforgettable poem about adolescence, and Anne Finch’s “A Nocturnal Reverie,” whose blank verse meditation looks ahead to Wordsworth like few other poems. John Clare’s “An Invite to Eternity,” Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s “A Summer Evening’s Meditation,” and Edmund Spenser’s famous Garden of Adonis, from The Faerie Queene, round out the rest.
In the second part (starting at about 42:00), I read from Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings, and Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life. Both, in their own way, are about each writer’s earliest discovery of words.
Don’t forget to join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here. 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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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First Person: Rome (AD 64) and America (1832) – Human Voices Wake Us
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 century? And what can we glean from Alexis De Tocqueville's (to me) amazingly short-sighted thoughts on the rich and the poor, from only two hundred years ago?
The excerpts come from Seneca's Letters to a Stoic, AD 64; and from Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, 1832.
Don’t forget to join Human Voices Wake Us on Patreon, or sign up for our newsletter here. 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.
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First Person: Minnesota at the Turn of the 20th Century – Human Voices Wake Us
An episode from 11/27/20: A reading from Studs Terkel’s book, American Dreams: Lost & Found. Here, Andy Johnson talks about his life in rural Minnesota at the turn of the twentieth century. The interview is also included in Terkel’s best-of volume, The Studs Terkel Reader.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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First Person: London, c. 1615 – Human Voices Wake Us
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 Rebellion, as the book has been retitled in its America). As usual, few writers are as ablet as Ackroyd to bring the past to life, and he uses two texts to paint a brief picture of London at the time: Thomas Dekker’s The Seven Deadly Sins of London (1607), and Ben Jonson’s play Bartholomew Fair (1614).
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message
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First Person: Pompeii (AD 79) & San Francisco (AD 1906) – Human Voices Wake Us
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 the earthquake that destroyed so much of San Francisco in 1906. My sources are a letter from Pliny the younger (read it here), where he describes Vesuvius and Pompeii, while an article by Jack London (read it here) takes us to San Francisco. I end with a reading of Laurie Sheck's poem "Pompeii," from her 2003 book, Black Series.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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First Person: A Waitress in Chicago in the 1960s – Human Voices Wake Us
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 About What They Do. Here, Terkel interviews a waitress named Dolores Dante.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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First Person: Vermont, 1940 – Human Voices Wake Us
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-night diner in Vermont. The excerpt comes from the Winter 2019 issue of Lapham's Quarterly, but a larger collection of WPA interviews can be found in the 2004 book, Men Against Granite.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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First Person: Visiting a Poor Poet in Paris, 1895 – Human Voices Wake Us
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 translation by Laird Easton, published as Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918.
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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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First Person: Paris, 1785 – Human Voices Wake Us
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 selection from its twelve volumes, The Waiting City: Paris 1782-1788.
Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also suddpport 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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message
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