About

email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com

Human Voices Wake us is a podcast devoted to history, poetry, and creativity. Each week the voices from history – poets, artists, stories from myth, first person accounts from ancient Rome to today’s telemarketers – come to life in through my (hopefully) unhurried voice. 

The podcast as a whole asks: how can we all – not just creative people – thrive in the world as it is now, and how can art and history help us do it? How did the writers and artists of the past do their work? Why have certain poems, stories, or ways of storytelling lasted, while so many others have disappeared – and what, indeed, are the stories and voices we need now?    

My latest book, and my first book of essays, Notes from the Grid, was just released.

You can read more about it here.


Over the years I’ve published a few books of poetry and fiction. Click on the covers to read reviews and excerpts:

To the House of the Sun: A Poem

The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old: Stories

Below is a continuing list of poems, essays and stories published online and in print:

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

The Basilisk Tree: Interviewed by Bryan Helton

Substack: 3 poems from The Great Year, including audio: “The Autumn Village,” “I was in Iceland centuries ago,” and “Smith looks up the long road”

Ancient World #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 BoatWalking with God in the World

Jewish Journal: 6 poems: A Ploughed FieldTrainMosesBezalelAbraham’s FatherThe 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 DreamMr 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