Human Voices Wake Us

• Anthology: Poems for Spring (from the archive)

  An episode from 3/12/23: Tonight, I return to new episodes with a handful of poems about the spring. As I mention, living as I do in a city usually inundated with snow, it has been bizarre to have not shoveled the driveway even once. And since the next few weeks of episodes are already planned out, it seemed appropriate to get to spring early, since the earth is doing that already. The poems are: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), “There is another sky” e. e. cummings (1894-1962), “O sweet spontaneous” Richard Eberhart (1904-2005), “This Fevers Me” Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), from “Toward an Organic Philosophy” Vernon Watkins (1906-1967), from “The Tributary Seasons” Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), “Spring” (“To what purpose, April, do you return again?” Abbie Huston Evans (1881-1983), “The Old Yellow Shop” Elinor Wylie (1885-1928), from “Wild Peaches” Henry King (1592-1669), “A Contemplation upon Flowers” William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from Act 3 of King Lear Ted Hughes (1930-1998), “Four March Watercolours”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 [email protected].

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• The Great Myths #24: Sigurd & the Dragon (from the archive)

  An episode from 5/20/24: Tonight, after a long hiatus, we return to Norse myth with the story of Sigurd’s killing of the dragon, Fafnir. Couched in a much longer narrative that contains shape-shifting, war, revenge, brief appearances by Odin and Loki, and finally Sigurd’s ability to hear the language of birds and animals, it is a brilliant and vivid example of storytelling in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I read from the two great sources of the story, the ⁠Volsung Saga⁠ (in the Jesse Byock translation) and Snorri Sturluson’s ⁠Prose Edda⁠ (in the Anthony Faulkes translation). I also discuss the history of the story, and its reworking in the Nibelungenlied, and Wagnerian opera. ⁠Listen to the other Great Myths here⁠. 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  [email protected].

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• Patti Smith / Mazzy Star & Living Colour / Philip Glass (from the archive)

  An episode from 11/13/23: Tonight, I talk about our attachment to music as teenagers and adults, and the lessons that loving music—and finding meaning in musicians’ life stories—can teach us. First, I read two passages from Patti Smith’s memoir, ⁠Just Kids⁠. Those parts on her early life with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, before either of them were well-known, are incredibly moving. Next, I talk about my attachment to the band Mazzy Star, and then read from a listener’s email about seeing the band Living Colour perform live for the first time, after years of listening to their music. Finally, I read a few passages from ⁠Words Without Music⁠, a memoir by the composer Philip Glass. 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  [email protected].

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• Great Poems: Shakespeare's "To Be or Not to Be" (from the archive)

  An episode from 8/12/22: Everybody knows the most famous soliloquy in all of drama, or at least the first line of it: ⁠"To be or not to be, that is the question,"⁠ from act three of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Tonight, I delve into the speech and try to figure out why it works so well not just as poetry and drama, but why it has leapt beyond literature entirely to become a cultural touchstone. Throughout the episode I include the performance of this speech from modern actors: the first is by ⁠Paapa Essiedu⁠, and the second by ⁠Andrew Scott⁠. The very last, to give a sense of what the original pronunciation of the speech would have sounded like, is performed by ⁠Ben Crystal⁠. A larger compilation of nine different versions ⁠can be found here⁠. The books read from in this episode are Ben and David Crystal’s ⁠Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion⁠, Marjorie Garber’s ⁠Shakespeare After All⁠, and Peter Ackroyd’s ⁠Shakespeare: The Biography⁠. 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  [email protected].

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• Anthology: Visionary Poems from Yeats, Whitman, Blake & Myth (from the archive)

  An episode from 3/3/24: Tonight, I read from a handful of what I call “visionary” poems. After an introductory section of familiar nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets, I go back to the sources of those, which are found in religious scripture and myth: W. B. Yeats: “The Second Coming” T. S. Eliot: sections from The Waste Land and “East Coker” Walt Whitman: the first section of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” William Wordsworth: from the thirteenth book of The Prelude William Blake: from his long poem Milton The first chapter of Ezekiel (from the JPS audio Tanakh) A speech from Euripides’s Bacchae, tr. William Arrowsmith Part of the eleventh book of the Bhagavad-Gita, tr. by Amit Majmudar in his Godsong I close the episode with a reading that will not surprise long-time listeners. 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  [email protected].

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