Essential Poets & Other Poetry

An episode from 8/25/23: 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 poems are collected in 100 Poems, and in the individual collections. There are many ways to look at Heaney’s work, and the ten poems I choose only present one picture: a poet as at home on the farm as he was at Harvard; as interested in literary history as in archaeology and the deep interior of the Irish imagination; as concerned with childhood, memory, and family as with the darkest aspects of human life. In introducing these poems, I reflect on Heaney’s importance in my own life, and the huge impact his death had on me, ten years ago this month. The poems I read are:   Personal Helicon (Death of a Naturalist, 1966) The Forge and Bogland (Door into the Dark, 1969) The Tollund Man (Wintering Out, 1972) The Strand at Lough Beg (Field Work, 1979) Squarings #2, #8, #40 (Seeing Things, 1991) from his translations of Beowulf (1999) Uncoupled (Human Chain, 2010)   The episode ends with Heaney's reading of "The Tollund Man." 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

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 poems can be found in The Collected Poems Volume I: 1909-1939, The Collected Poems Volume II: 1939-1962, and Paterson. The biographies I read from are Paul Mariani’s William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked, and the essay on Williams’ life at The Poetry Foundation. The poems I read are: Pastoral (1917) Danse Russe (1917) Waiting (1921) The Great Figure (1921) The Red Wheelbarrow (1923) Flowers by the Sea (first version) (1931) War, the Destroyer! (1942) Approach to a City (1946) To a Dog Injured in the Street (1954) Deep Religious Faith (1954) from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower (1955) 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 10/3/22: Over the course of forty years, Ted Hughes (1930-1998) wrote some of the best poetry of the twentieth (or any) century. Tonight, I read twelve of Hughes’s essential poems, where we see his primal concerns—the violence but also beauty of nature and animal life; mythology and religion; and his own autobiography—expressed in language as powerful as any that has ever been written. The poems are: Wind (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957) Six Young Men (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957) Crow's Song About God (from Crow, 1970-71) “I skin the skin” (from Gaudete, 1977) A Green Mother (from Cave Birds, 1978) Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days (from Cave Birds, 1978) Cock-Crows (from Remains of Elmet, 1979) Rain (from Moortown Diary, 1979) February 17th (from Moortown Diary, 1979) Four March Watercolours (from River, 1983) October Salmon (from River, 1983) Life After Death (from Birthday Letters, 1998) This is followed by a reading Hughes gave of his poem, “October Salmon.” Hughes’s poetry can be found in his ⁠Collected Poems⁠. Smaller selections include ⁠Selected Poems 1957-1994⁠ and ⁠A Ted Hughes Bestiary⁠. In this episode I also read from ⁠The Letters of Ted Hughes⁠. Other episodes on Hughes include ⁠one where he discusses privacy⁠ for his family in the wake of Sylvia Plath’s posthumous fame; another where ⁠he discusses how he discovered poetry⁠; and another, ⁠much longer episode of readings⁠ from Hughes’s poetry. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 9/23/22: What twentieth-century American poet devoted so much time to the environment, and to humanity’s place in it, other than Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)? What other poet devoted his powers not to the puzzles of Modernism but to the plain-spoken strengths of science, prophecy, and myth? Tonight I read ten of Jeffers’ essential poems, and I hope you are as stunned by them as I always am.      The poems I read are: The Excesses of God Point Joe Hooded Night New Mexican Mountain Nova from Hungerfield De Rerum Virtute Vulture “I am seventy-four years old and suddenly all my strength” Inscription for a Gravestone The episode ends with a 1941 Library of Congress recording of Jeffers reading his poem, “Natural Music.” Selections of Jeffers’s poetry are legion: many of them ⁠can be found here⁠. The five-volume Collected Poems of Robinson Jeffers, edited by Tim Hunt and published by Stanford University Press, can be found here⁠. You can read more about his life at the ⁠Poetry Foundation⁠ and ⁠Wikipedia⁠. A larger selection of his poetry, which I recorded in 2020-2021, ⁠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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/9/22: Is Whitman our great poet of love, or of longing? Is there a difference? In this episode, I share my favorite of his love poems, many of which are expressed as unfulfilled longing. They can all be found in ⁠The Selected Short Poems of Walt Whitman⁠, and ⁠The Selected Long Poems of Walt Whitman⁠: Selections from “Song of Myself” To You Once I Pass’d through a Populous City Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances Calamus #8 Calamus #9 When I Heard at the Close of the Day To a Stranger When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame Thou Reader I Sing the Body Electric Following these poems (at around 1:06:57), I’ve inserted a reading from a previous episode on Whitman’s love and sex life, from Paul Zweig’s book, ⁠Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet⁠. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/14/22: “Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?” Walt Whitman asks. “I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.” Long after so many aspects of his poems have ceased to shock us, Whitman’s attitude towards death remains perhaps the most challenging in all of his poetry. Tonight, I read from my favorite of those poems: the youthful bits from “Song of Myself,” his meditations over the Civil War, and the poems that came from old age. They can all be found in ⁠The Selected Short Poems of Walt Whitman⁠, and ⁠The Selected Long Poems of Walt Whitman⁠. Short Poems: Selections from “Song of Myself” The Compost I Sit and Look Out Scented Herbage of My Breast Of Him I Love Day and Night As the Time Draws Nigh So Long! Not Youth Pertains to Me Old War-Dreams As at Thy Portals Also Death A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine As I Sit Writing Here Supplement Hours Long Poems: The Sleepers As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/19/22: From the opening line of the Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman announced that his great theme was unity: “I celebrate myself,/And what I assume you shall assume,/For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” As the last two episodes show, his best poems on both love and death rise up out of this central belief in humanity’s unity with nature and the animal world, and our unity as a human species, which crosses all barriers of race, religion, and belief. And finally, in perhaps his best poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” that unity extends from the past, the present, and into the future. Tonight, then, I read the best of Whitman’s poems in this vein, which (for lack of a better word) I have simply called “mystical.” All of the poems can be found in the two recent books I edited, ⁠The Selected Short Poems of Walt Whitman⁠, and ⁠The Selected Long Poems of Walt Whitman⁠. Short Poems: Selections from “Song of Myself” Assurances Earth, My Likeness Full of Life Now To a Common Prostitute Mother and Babe O Me! O Life! Sparkles from the Wheel To Thee Old Cause! A Clear Midnight From Montauk Point America L. of G.’s Purport Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun Long Poems: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (1:08:00) Song of the Open Road (1:26:00) A Song of the Rolling Earth (1:48:53) 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 8/25/23: 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 poems are collected in 100 Poems, and in the individual collections. There are many ways to look at Heaney’s work, and the ten poems I choose only present one picture: a poet as at home on the farm as he was at Harvard; as interested in literary history as in archaeology and the deep interior of the Irish imagination; as concerned with childhood, memory, and family as with the darkest aspects of human life. In introducing these poems, I reflect on Heaney’s importance in my own life, and the huge impact his death had on me, ten years ago this month. The poems I read are:   Personal Helicon (Death of a Naturalist, 1966) The Forge and Bogland (Door into the Dark, 1969) The Tollund Man (Wintering Out, 1972) The Strand at Lough Beg (Field Work, 1979) Squarings #2, #8, #40 (Seeing Things, 1991) from his translations of Beowulf (1999) Uncoupled (Human Chain, 2010)   The episode ends with Heaney's reading of "The Tollund Man." 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 6/22/21: From nearly from the first week or two it went live, this episode has remained the most popular I've ever done. It not only features excerpts from one of the great poetry collections of the twentieth century–Seamus Heaney's North, from 1975–but it also includes readings of interviews with him on the writing of the poems themselves. If we want to imagine poetry having a more public impact today, and if we want to wonder how poetry can deal powerfully with history as well as the issues of the day, we can hardly do better than Heaney's poems of Iron Age violence. Only Heaney could have taken the haunting and brutal remains of the bog bodies found all across ancient Europe, and used them against the backdrop the Troubles in Ireland in the 1970s: Belderg Funeral Rites Bog Queen The Grauballe Man Punishment Strange Fruit Kinship North can be purchased here; the book of interviews with Heaney that I read from is Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. The relevant books on the bog bodies themselves are P. V. Glob's The Bog People: Iron Age Man Preserved, Wijnand Van Der Sanden's Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe, Timothy Taylor's The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death, Miranda Aldhouse-Green's Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe's Ancient Mystery. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 7/19/21: Tonight, I read 13 poems from Seamus Heaney's 1991 collection, and arguably his best single book of poetry, Seeing Things. Nearly all of the poems I've chosen from this collection are from his incredible autobiographical sequence, "Squarings": 11 poems from the sequence called "Squarings": #2, #8, #15, #25, #27, #31, #32, #40, #42, #45, #46 Seeing Things 1.1.87 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 7/14/21: Tonight, I read and comment on interviews that Seamus Heaney gave on the writing of his 1991 book, Seeing Things. Perhaps surpassing even his 1975 collection, North, Seeing Things includes the forty-eight part autobiographical sequence called "Squarings," and much of the interview that I read from is taken up with these incredible poems. The interviews are from Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

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. The poems are: Follower  Poem  Personal Helicon  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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 5/30/21: Tonight, I read three poems from Seamus Heaney's second collection, Door into the Dark (1969): Dream The Forge Bogland Following the poems is a reading from interviews Heaney gave on the writing of Door into the Dark, taken from Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 6/12/21: Tonight, I read three poems from Seamus Heaney's third collection, Wintering Out (1972): The Tollund Man Limbo First Calf Following the poems is a reading from interviews Heaney gave on the writing of Wintering Out, taken from Dennis O'Driscoll's Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. The first five of Heaney's collections can be purchased here, and a good selection from the first half of his career can be found in Selected Poems 1966-1987. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 8/20/21: A collection of all the poems by Seamus Heaney I have read here over the past few months, spanning his entire career. Each of his collections of poetry can of course be purchased on their own, but nearly everything I read here can be found either in his career-spanning 100 Poems, or in the two volumes of his selected poetry: Selected Poems 1966-1987 and Selected Poems 1988-2013.  Death of a Naturalist (1966) Follower Poem Personal Helicon Door Into the Dark (1969) Dream The Forge Bogland Wintering Out (1972) The Tollund Man Limbo First Calf North (1975) Belderg Funeral Rites Bog Queen The Grauballe Man Punishment Strange Fruit Kinship Field Work (1979) The Strand at Lough Beg from "Field Work" Station Island (1984) The Railway Children VII from Station Island VIII from Station Island The Scribes The Haw Lantern (1987) III from Clearances The Mud Vision Seeing Things (1991) Seeing Things 1.1.87 #2, #8 from Lightenings #15 from Settings #25, #27, #31, #32 from Crossings #40, #42, #45, #46 from Squarings The Spirit Level (1996) The Strand Postscript District & Circle (2006) A Shiver #1 from "District & Circle" A Hagging Match Human Chain (2010) Uncoupled Miracle from "Colum Cille Cecinit" from Hermit Songs from In the Attic from Heaney's translation of Beowulf 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/21/22: How does a great poet come into the world? What is their childhood like, their education? What was the first poetry they knew, and when did they realize they wanted to write poetry themselves? Tonight, we hear the Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s answers to these questions. As usual, these remarks come from Dennis O’Driscoll’s book-length collection of interviews with Heaney, ⁠Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney⁠. You can listen to our other episodes on Heaney and his poetry 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/19/23: In 2020, the Irish historian and biographer R. F. Foster published a wonderful and brief book, On Seamus Heaney. It is a great introduction to Heaney, and tonight I read my favorite passages from it. The book spans his entire career, and his lifelong preoccupations with history, violence, family, and mythology. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 10/3/22: Over the course of forty years, Ted Hughes (1930-1998) wrote some of the best poetry of the twentieth (or any) century. Tonight, I read twelve of Hughes’s essential poems, where we see his primal concerns—the violence but also beauty of nature and animal life; mythology and religion; and his own autobiography—expressed in language as powerful as any that has ever been written. The poems are: Wind (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957) Six Young Men (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957) Crow's Song About God (from Crow, 1970-71) “I skin the skin” (from Gaudete, 1977) A Green Mother (from Cave Birds, 1978) Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days (from Cave Birds, 1978) Cock-Crows (from Remains of Elmet, 1979) Rain (from Moortown Diary, 1979) February 17th (from Moortown Diary, 1979) Four March Watercolours (from River, 1983) October Salmon (from River, 1983) Life After Death (from Birthday Letters, 1998) This is followed by a reading Hughes gave of his poem, “October Salmon.” Hughes’s poetry can be found in his ⁠Collected Poems⁠. Smaller selections include ⁠Selected Poems 1957-1994⁠ and ⁠A Ted Hughes Bestiary⁠. In this episode I also read from ⁠The Letters of Ted Hughes⁠. Other episodes on Hughes include ⁠one where he discusses privacy⁠ for his family in the wake of Sylvia Plath’s posthumous fame; another where ⁠he discusses how he discovered poetry⁠; and another, ⁠much longer episode of readings⁠ from Hughes’s poetry. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/10/24: Tonight, I read seven poems from Ted Hughes's collection of farming poems, Moortown Diary, first published in 1978. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from Moortown Diary are: Rain Bringing in new couples Surprise Ravens February 17th Birth of Rainbow A monument This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in January of 2021, which included only five poems. I've used the opportunity to read from Hughes's preface and notes to the book, as well as a letter written to his friend, Keith Sagar about the collection. I also include audio of Hughes from the BBC/British Library recordings collected as The Spoken Word: Ted Hughes, Poems and Short Stories. 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. 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

An episode from 3/15/24: Tonight, I read eleven poems from Ted Hughes's 1979 collection, Remains of Elmet. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from Remains of Elmet are: Light Falls through Itself Crown Point Pensioners "Six years into her posthumous life" These Grasses of Light Walls Heather Remains of Elmet Where the Millstone of Sky The Ancient Briton Lay under His Rock Heptonstall Cock Crows (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here) This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in April of 2021, which included only seven poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bate's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection. 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

An episode from 5/8/24: Tonight, I read fourteen poems from Ted Hughes's 1970 collection, Crow. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that read are: A Childish Prank (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here) Crow's First Lesson Crow Tyrannosaurus Crow & the Birds Crowego Crow Blacker than Ever Crow's Last Stand Crow & the Sea Fragments of an Ancient Tablet Notes for a Little Play Lovesong Littleblood Crow's Courtship Crow's Song about God This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in August of 2021, which included fewer poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bate's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection. 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

An episode from 2/7/24: Tonight, I read six poems from Ted Hughes's 1983 collection, River. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from River are: October Salmon (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here) Four March Watercolours Salmon Eggs An August Salmon The River In the Dark Violin of the Valley This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in September of 2021, which included only three poems. I've used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bate's biography of Hughes, Hughes's later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection. 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

An episode from 12/7/21: Tonight, I read eleven short poems from a handful of books that Ted Hughes published during the 1970s. As I talk about in the introduction, this decade saw the writing and publication of Hughes's most powerful books: Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River (which themselves did not find their final form until the 1990s). In between these books, Hughes published a handful of other collections, mostly through small presses. Few of these books can be read from start to finish as successful wholes; however, the best poems from them are as strong as anything he ever wrote, and they deserve to be heard together. They can all be found in his Collected Poems: Prometheus on His Crag (1973): #7 Gaudette (1977): I skin the skin Uncollected (1977-1978): New Foal Orts (1978): #1, #44 Cave Birds (1978): The Executioner, A Green Mother, Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days Adam & the Sacred Nine (1979): And the Phoenix has come Earthnumb (1979): Life is Trying to Be Life, A God 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 12/21/21: Tonight, I read five poems from Ted Hughes’s last book, Birthday Letters (1998). This is the book where Hughes finally addressed his relationship to Sylvia Plath in verse, nearly forty years after her suicide. In my introduction to the poems, I also talk about the strangeness, both of audiences demanding such a confession over a private matter, and the weight that Hughes said was lifted from him when he finally published the book. All of the poems can be found in his ⁠Collected Poems⁠. The poems are: A Pink Wool Knitted Dress You Hated Spain Drawing The Rabbit Catcher Life after Death 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/31/22: Tonight, I collect all of Ted Hughes’s poetry that I have recorded and posted here over the past year. They can all be found in his Collected Poems (smaller selections of his poetry include Selected Poems 1957-1994 and A Ted Hughes Bestiary). Rather than organizing my readings of Hughes’s poetry chronologically, I start with what seems to me his best poetry (and some of the best poetry in English, period)—that is, the poetry he published between 1970 and 1983. Only after these are his first three collections read from; the readings after that pick up his later career. A full table of contents can be downloaded here (it is too large to paste into the episode description). 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 10/24/21: Tonight, I read from the letters of Ted Hughes, on how he came to discover a love for poetry, the natural world, as well as folklore and mythology, and how all three became intertwined and essential to his life. All of these can be found in Letters of Ted Hughes. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 11/2/21: Tonight, I read a letter written by the British poet Ted Hughes, to a friend and critic, Al Alvarez, in November of 1971. At the time, Alvarez was publishing an intimate (and to Hughes's mind, exploitative) account of the 1963 suicide of Hughes's wife, the poet Sylvia Plath. The letter can be found in The Letters of Ted Hughes, pages 321-326. I use this letter as a starting point to wonder why we treat the famous, or just the infamous, the way we do, and how, fifty years later, we continue to lap up the gossip surrounding well-known people. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/9/22: Is Whitman our great poet of love, or of longing? Is there a difference? In this episode, I share my favorite of his love poems, many of which are expressed as unfulfilled longing. They can all be found in ⁠The Selected Short Poems of Walt Whitman⁠, and ⁠The Selected Long Poems of Walt Whitman⁠: Selections from “Song of Myself” To You Once I Pass’d through a Populous City Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances Calamus #8 Calamus #9 When I Heard at the Close of the Day To a Stranger When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame Thou Reader I Sing the Body Electric Following these poems (at around 1:06:57), I’ve inserted a reading from a previous episode on Whitman’s love and sex life, from Paul Zweig’s book, ⁠Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet⁠. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/14/22: “Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?” Walt Whitman asks. “I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.” Long after so many aspects of his poems have ceased to shock us, Whitman’s attitude towards death remains perhaps the most challenging in all of his poetry. Tonight, I read from my favorite of those poems: the youthful bits from “Song of Myself,” his meditations over the Civil War, and the poems that came from old age. They can all be found in ⁠The Selected Short Poems of Walt Whitman⁠, and ⁠The Selected Long Poems of Walt Whitman⁠. Short Poems: Selections from “Song of Myself” The Compost I Sit and Look Out Scented Herbage of My Breast Of Him I Love Day and Night As the Time Draws Nigh So Long! Not Youth Pertains to Me Old War-Dreams As at Thy Portals Also Death A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine As I Sit Writing Here Supplement Hours Long Poems: The Sleepers As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/19/22: From the opening line of the Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman announced that his great theme was unity: “I celebrate myself,/And what I assume you shall assume,/For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” As the last two episodes show, his best poems on both love and death rise up out of this central belief in humanity’s unity with nature and the animal world, and our unity as a human species, which crosses all barriers of race, religion, and belief. And finally, in perhaps his best poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” that unity extends from the past, the present, and into the future. Tonight, then, I read the best of Whitman’s poems in this vein, which (for lack of a better word) I have simply called “mystical.” All of the poems can be found in the two recent books I edited, ⁠The Selected Short Poems of Walt Whitman⁠, and ⁠The Selected Long Poems of Walt Whitman⁠. Short Poems: Selections from “Song of Myself” Assurances Earth, My Likeness Full of Life Now To a Common Prostitute Mother and Babe O Me! O Life! Sparkles from the Wheel To Thee Old Cause! A Clear Midnight From Montauk Point America L. of G.’s Purport Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun Long Poems: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (1:08:00) Song of the Open Road (1:26:00) A Song of the Rolling Earth (1:48:53) 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 2/17/21: Tonight, I read what is probably Walt Whitman's greatest single poem, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." More focused than "Song of Myself," and concerned with much more than the mourning that consumes "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," here Whitman gives himself over to sympathy with the past and the future. He shows all of us how we can live in the present, even if we are isolated for whatever reason, and find company and sympathy in the world. The best place to find Whitman's poetry and other writing online remains the Whitman Archive, and you can find every edition of Leaves of Grass here (as plain text downloads) and here (facsimiles of the original editions). You can find the poem in an edition of Whitman's poems that I edited, Selected Long Poems. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 9/13/21: Tonight, I read a small section of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." For those who want to find it for themselves, it later ends up as part of section #33. I can't think of a more life-affirming passage in Whitman's or anybody else's poetry, than this rolling, glorious, catalogue. The best place to find Whitman's poetry and other writing online remains the ⁠Whitman Archive⁠, and you can find every edition of Leaves of Grass ⁠here⁠ (as plain text downloads) and ⁠here⁠ (facsimiles of the original editions). You can find the poem in an edition of Whitman's poems that I edited, ⁠Selected Long Poems⁠. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 9/21/21: Tonight I read Walt Whitman's poem, "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun," first published in the 1865 collection Drum Taps. Among Whitman's shorter poems, there is no better expression of the tension he felt between nature and urban life. You can read the poem here or find it in Walt Whitman: Selected Short Poems. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

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 Manhattan. This is also an important episode for this podcast, where I first realized that perhaps the best way to talk about poetry and creativity is to simply read from any given book, and comment along the way. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 3/9/21: This is the second 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, he focuses on Whitman's earliest involvement in politics, and the importance of opera and theater in his life, aspects of which appears in his poetry. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

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, he focuses on Whitman's earliest involvement in politics, and the importance of opera and theater in his life, aspects of which appears in his poetry. Here, Zweig delves into the questions surrounding Whitman's sexuality, and the apparent difference between his effusive and physically-open poetic personae, and the more reserved person he seems to have been in his private life. Zweig's discussion of Whitman's ability to derive meaning simply through longing for other men is one of the most moving things in any biography. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

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 year 1849, when the first stirrings of what would become Leaves of Grass begin to appear, in his notebooks and his life. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 3/28/21: This is the fifth 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, we move closer to the writing of Leaves of Grass, which coincided with Whitman and his family's work in building and selling houses in Brooklyn. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

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 as he tried in his poetry to seem completely unlettered, and without any influences at all. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 9/23/22: What twentieth-century American poet devoted so much time to the environment, and to humanity’s place in it, other than Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)? What other poet devoted his powers not to the puzzles of Modernism but to the plain-spoken strengths of science, prophecy, and myth? Tonight I read ten of Jeffers’ essential poems, and I hope you are as stunned by them as I always am.      The poems I read are: The Excesses of God Point Joe Hooded Night New Mexican Mountain Nova from Hungerfield De Rerum Virtute Vulture “I am seventy-four years old and suddenly all my strength” Inscription for a Gravestone The episode ends with a 1941 Library of Congress recording of Jeffers reading his poem, “Natural Music.” Selections of Jeffers’s poetry are legion: many of them ⁠can be found here⁠. The five-volume Collected Poems of Robinson Jeffers, edited by Tim Hunt and published by Stanford University Press, can be found here⁠. You can read more about his life at the ⁠Poetry Foundation⁠ and ⁠Wikipedia⁠. A larger selection of his poetry, which I recorded in 2020-2021, ⁠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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 11/5/2020: Tonight, I read a handful of poems from Robinson Jeffers's late collection, Hungerfield. The book, especially the title poem, is taken up with the death of Jeffers's wife, Una, in 1950: Animals Time of Disturbance The Beauty of Things The World's Wonders The Old Stone-Mason excerpt from Hungerfield De Rerum Virtute The Deer Lay Down Their Bones Jeffers remains one of the few poets who remain just as strong, or even become a better poet, in old age. Buy ⁠The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers⁠ or Volume 3 of ⁠The Collected Poems of Robinson Jeffers⁠. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 10/26/20: Tonight, I read six poems from the Last Poems of Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962): Explosion Vulture 'The polar ice-caps are melting, the mountain glaciers' 'As the eye fails through age or disease' 'It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said' 'I am seventy-four years old and suddenly all my strength' Jeffers remains one of the few poets who remain just as strong, or even become a better poet, in old age. Buy The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers or Volume 3 of The Collected Poems of Robinson Jeffers. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 4/30/21: Here is a collection of all of the recordings I've made of the poetry of Robinson Jeffers from November of 2020 until this month. Jeffers' collected poetry spans three huge volumes, and nearly every individual collection included a narrative poem alongside the shorter lyrics. While Jeffers seemed to have believed that his reputation would rest on these longer poems, none of them (at least for me) come near matching the power that he is able to achieve in his shorter poems. It is easy to define him by his "inhumanist" philosophy, or to pigeon-hole him as a merely "Californian" or "ecological" poet, but no labels can contain what Jeffers was able to do with language. Find all of these poems in The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, or the ⁠The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers⁠. Tamar (1920-1923) The Excesses of God Age in Prospect To the Rock that Will Be a Cornerstone of the House Point Joe Roan Stallion (1924-1925) Birds Boats in a Fog Joy The Women at Point Sur (1925-1926) Post Mortem Pelicans excerpt from Credo Cawdor (1926-1928) Tor House Dear Judas (1928-1929) Hooded Night excerpt from Ossian's Grave Antrim Inscription for a Gravestone Subjected Earth Second Best Thurso's Landing (1930-1931) New Mexican Mountain Give Your Heart to the Hawks (1931-1933) Still the Mind Smiles Such Counsels You Gave to Me (1935-1938) Nova Contemplation of the Sword Shiva The Double Axe (1942-1947) Original Sin Hungerfield (1948-1953) Animals Time of Disturbance The Beauty of Things The World's Wonders The Old Stone-Mason excerpt from Hungerfield De Rerum Virtute The Deer Lay Down Their Bones Last Poems (1953-1962) Explosion Vulture "The polar ice-caps are melting" "As the eye fails" "It nearly cancels my fear of death" "I am seventy-four years old" 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 1/31/21: The American writer Laurie Sheck (born 1953) was the first poet that I read extensively from on Human Voices Wake Us. Her 1996 book, The Willow Grove, remains one of the best single collections of poetry I’ve ever read, especially where Sheck remembers her childhood, learning to read, first going to museums, and so much else. And for someone like me, for whom the mystique and power of driving and listening to the radio (or podcasts, now) is so intense, a poem like “Headlights” sums up years of my life. The entire book feels like one long poem, and even the thirteen poems here, when heard together, have the wholeness of a continuous story: The Stockroom Living Color from the Book of Persephone,      pt. 4 Learning to Read Mummy Morning Walk Sycamore The Leper Colony View of the Asylum Garden Headlights Streets Cypresses Sea 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 11/13/21: Tonight, I read eight poems from Louise Glück's 1992 collection, The Wild Iris. Following these are an episode from March, 2021, of six poems from her 1990 book, Ararat. A good barometer for determining any poet's best work is "the poems nobody else could have written," and indeed there is nothing else like these two books that I know of in English. Among other things, there are great lessons in them for any poet attempting to use autobiography, parenting, nature, religion (or skepticism), in their own work. Buy Ararat or The Wild Iris individually, or in Glück's Collected Poems 1962-2012.  from The Wild Iris Matins ("Forgive me if I say I love you") Retreating Wind The Garden Field Flowers Matins ("Not the sun merely but the earth") Vespers ("More than you love me, very possibly") September Twilight The White Lilies from Ararat Lost Love Appearances Brown Circle Child Crying Out Celestial Music First Memory 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 10/8/2020: In the first episode of Human Voices Wake Us, I read Louise Glück's poem, "Messengers," on the morning that it was announced that she had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Buy her Collected Poems: 1962-2012. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 11/4/21: Tonight, I read four of William Wordsworth's greatest poems. On some days, it's only rolling along with Wordsworth's rhymed or unrhymed reminiscences or descriptions of nature, that teaches again what poetry is about, what poetry can do: Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood London (1802): "Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour!" St. Paul's "It was an April morning: fresh and clear" (part 1 on "Poems on the Naming of Places") Each of these can be found in the Selected Poems of Wordsworth that I edited, as part of the S4N Pocket Poems 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

An episode from 12/27/20: Tonight, I read one of T. S. Eliot's earliest poems, "Preludes". While many readers rightly go for his more famous poems, I take the time to discuss here how "Preludes" was my way into Eliot's later, and more allusive, poetry. 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. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support