An episode from 6/15/25: Tonight, the podcast returns briefly for a reading of my new short story, "The One Who Sang So Well." The episode coincides with the story's publication in The Basilisk Tree—you can read it here. Many thanks to editor Bryan Helton for taking the story.

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.

An episode from 10/16/23: Tonight, I read my long poem about William Shakespeare, and offer a commentary along the way. It is being published simultaneously at Bryan Helton’s The Basilisk Tree, and once again I give Bryan my infinite thanks.

This will be the third long poem of mine that he has published this year to coincide with an episode of Human Voices Wake Us – the other two are on Leonardo da Vinci and Pythagoras. Please take the time to check out the rest of The Basilisk Tree, or to even submit your own poetry.

While introducing my Shakespeare poem, I mention that it was in part inspired by an episode I did here on the (real or fictional) love life of Walt Whitman. You can listen to that episode 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.

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 humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.