A Voice Like This

Masks and Mirrors

How much of ourselves do we really show to the world?

In this episode of A Voice Like This, three poets explore the distance between the face others see and the life being lived beneath it.

In “We Wear the Mask”, Paul Laurence Dunbar writes of the smiling face worn to conceal suffering, in words shaped by the particular experience of Black Americans living in a society marked by racism.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s “Solitude” considers a world eager to share our happiness, but far less willing to accompany...

A Quiet Mind

Where do we find stillness when the mind itself is full of noise?

Marking World Mental Health Day, this episode of A Voice Like This brings together two poems written almost eighty years apart, each finding its own way through uncertainty, isolation and the restless noise of life.

In “I Am!”, John Clare writes from a place of profound loneliness and confusion, yet beneath it all remains a simple, defiant assertion of existence: I am.

Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata” offers a gentler path through the noise, with its enduring c...

Lessons

What does it really mean to teach?

Marking World Teachers’ Day, this episode of A Voice Like This looks beyond lessons, books and classrooms to explore where understanding really comes from.

In “On Teaching”, Kahlil Gibran suggests that a teacher cannot simply give us wisdom. At best, they can lead us to the threshold of our own understanding.

William Wordsworth takes us somewhere rather different. In “The Tables Turned”, he closes the books altogether and invites us outside, where Nature becomes the teacher and learning begins simply by watching, listening and experi...

The Turning Year

Season Two of A Voice Like This begins with autumn.

In “To Autumn”, John Keats finds the season at its fullest: heavy with fruit, warmth and ripeness, lingering in the last abundance of the year.

Gerard Manley Hopkins looks at the same turning of the seasons from a very different place. In “Spring and Fall: to a young child”, falling leaves become something deeper: a child's first encounter with loss, change and the knowledge that nothing remains as it is.

Two poems. Two very different responses to the turning...

A Voice Like This returns for Season Two on Monday, 28 September.

A new collection of poetry from voices past and present, brought off the page and into the spoken word.

There’ll be familiar names, unexpected discoveries and a few special episodes along the way.

Just a few quiet minutes each week. A poem, a voice, and a chance to simply listen.

Subscribe or follow now, and Season Two will be waiting for you when it begins.

A Voice Like This - Season Two

Begins 28 September 2026.

For the final episode of the year, A Voice Like This presents a complete reading of

A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas.

A seasonal favourite, Thomas’s lyrical memoir captures the sights, sounds, and small moments of a Welsh childhood at Christmas; snow-filled streets, family rituals, and voices that linger long after the season has passed.

This episode is offered simply and in full, without interruption.

A Voice Like This will return in mid-January with new episodes and new poetry.

Until then, Merry Christmas, and take care...

A Visit from St. Nicholas

As Christmas approaches, this special bonus episode invites a quiet moment of calm amid the winter bustle. Phil offers a gentle reflection on the season before reading 'A Visit from St. Nicholas', the beloved poem more commonly known as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.

A festive pause, a breath of stillness, and a timeless story that continues to shape the magic of Christmas for generations.

Poem featured: A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore

Thank you for listening.

Wishing yo...

What does it mean for love to last?

Not the rush of feeling, or the drama of declaration, but the quieter, steadier work of trust. The kind that’s built carefully, tested over time, and strong enough to stand without constant reassurance.

In this episode, we explore love as something enduring and unshaken, through two poems that speak across centuries.

Seamus Heaney’s Scaffolding offers a grounded, human image of commitment; practical, patient, and earned. William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 follows, affirming love as a constant force: unchanged by time, untouched by circumstance, and steadf...

Featuring “I Dream a World” by Langston Hughes and “The Human Family” by Maya Angelou

In this uplifting episode of A Voice Like This, we explore two poems that imagine a gentler world and celebrate the ties that bind us together.

Langston Hughes dreams of a future shaped by justice, kindness, and shared humanity.

Maya Angelou reminds us that in all our differences, we are still deeply alike.

Together, these poems offer a hopeful vision - a reminder that peace and love are not distant ideals, but possibilities that begin with us.

In this deeply personal episode, we pause to reflect on the quiet power of a life well lived — and the everyday moments that shape who we become.

At the request of my niece Joanne, and in loving memory of my sister Tracy, I read The Dash — a poem that reminds us how profoundly the small choices of our days define the legacy we leave behind.

To accompany it, I share Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day, a poem full of wonder, stillness, and gentle curiosity. Oliver invites us to slow down, to notice beauty in the or...

Poems featured:

“Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost

“The Orange” by Wendy Cope

“The Laughing Heart” by Charles Bukowski

In this lighter, brighter episode of A Voice Like This, we turn our attention to the small joys -the sparks, glimmers, and brief flashes of warmth that can shift an entire day.

Robert Frost offers a tiny moment of unexpected wonder.

Wendy Cope celebrates the quiet delight found in something as simple as an orange.

And Charles Bukowski closes with a call to embrace your own life and kee...

This episode marks a time of remembrance.

We pause to honour those who gave their lives in war — and to reflect on the truth that lies behind the words honour and glory.

John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” has become almost inseparable from remembrance itself — a poem of beauty and resolve, written in the shadow of the Great War.

Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” answers that call with the voice of experience, stripped of illusion, confronting the human cost behind the patriotic ideal.

Together, these two poems remind us that remembrance...

As autumn deepens and the light fades earlier each day, we begin to measure time in quieter ways. Light & Time brings together two voices - Shakespeare and Vaughan - who, across centuries, reflect on what it means to age, and what lies beyond the boundaries of time itself.

In Sonnet 73, Shakespeare offers one of the most intimate meditations on aging ever written - not in fear, but with acceptance. He imagines himself as a fading fire, a tree stripped of its leaves, a twilight sky at rest. Yet from that awareness grows something stronger: love deepened by...

Bonfire Night — the spark of rebellion, and the quiet wonder that follows.

Every November, the night sky in Britain crackles with memory; a celebration of rebellion and the light that follows it. Fire & Freedom explores both sides of that spark: the defiant blaze of revolution, and the quiet wonder of beauty born from fire.

We begin with Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Masque of Anarchy, a thunderous call to awaken, written in response to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. Shelley’s words rise like flames from the page, demanding justice not through violence, but through courage and un...

This Halloween season, A Voice Like This takes a seat by the fire — and invites in two unquiet guests.

From the rhythmic unease of a ghost that isn’t there, to a love so still it defies life itself, this special episode explores the shadowed edge of the human mind — where affection becomes obsession, and absence feels almost alive.

Featuring readings of:

“Antigonish” by Hughes Mearns

“Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning

🎧 A Halloween special — best listened to after dark.

In this episode, Phil Rowe explores two timeless reflections on the passage of life — Dylan Thomas’s nostalgic “Fern Hill” and Robert Herrick’s carpe diem classic “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.”

Thomas’s lyrical remembrance of childhood radiates joy and innocence — until time itself steps forward, gently reclaiming that golden youth. Herrick’s poem, written three centuries earlier, looks in the opposite direction, urging us to seize the day before it slips away.

Together, they form a perfect circle: one remembering what was, the other reminding us what still can be.

🎧 Featuring rea...

Episode 15: Fears and Fire

Poems: When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be — John Keats

& Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night — Dylan Thomas

There’s a shadow that walks beside us all — the quiet reminder that our time is finite. Some poets choose to face that truth with trembling hands; others meet it with clenched fists and flame in their hearts.

In this episode, Fears and Fire, two voices speak across the centuries.

John Keats, the doomed Romantic, writes of life’s unfinished...

 Some poems are written in fire — words that refuse to bow,

even in the darkest of moments. Others remind us that life isn’t just about

endurance, but about pausing, noticing, and letting stillness in.

In this episode of A Voice Like This, I read two

poems that seem to stand at opposite ends of the spectrum, yet together find a

perfect balance.

Strength and stillness. Grit and grace. Perhaps the art of

living is knowing when we need each.

📖 Poems featured:

Not every poem has to be serious. Sometimes, it’s enough for the words to rattle, bounce, and carry us along for the ride.

In this episode of A Voice Like This, I start with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Windy Nights — a short, stormy gallop through the dark. Then we turn to Edward Lear’s The Jumblies, where nonsense reigns and adventure begins with the simple idea of sailing off in a sieve.

There’s a joy in poems like these: they don’t try to explain themselves, and maybe that’s the point. They just invite us...

Podcast: A Voice Like This

Hosted by Phil Rowe

In this episode, Phil explores two very different – but equally powerful – expressions of love in poetry. From Shakespeare’s immortalised summer’s day to Carol Ann Duffy’s brutally honest onion, we discover how love can be idealised, subverted, celebrated… and sliced open.

These poems remind us that love isn’t just a feeling — it’s a form, a voice, and sometimes a sharp edge in the dark.

Featured Poems:

Listen Now on all major p...

Two poems, two very different takes on what love looks and feels like.

From Shakespeare’s immortal “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” to Carol Ann Duffy’s onion-wrapped metaphor in Valentine, this episode unwraps the poetic layers of romance, tenderness, and truth.

Whether you’re a lover, a cynic, or somewhere in between, this one’s for you.

In this episode, Phil Rowe explores two quiet yet profound reflections on death — and what it means to those left behind.

We begin with Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson, a poem that invites us to consider death not as something to fear, but as a calm and curious companion. Then we move to Song (When I am dead, my dearest) by Christina Rossetti, whose measured tenderness offers us a different kind of comfort — and a gentle release from grief.

Both poems speak with the hush of still rooms and the weig...

In this episode of A Voice Like This, Phil Rowe reads three powerful reflections on transience, legacy, and loss. Together, they explore the question: What truly endures when all else fades?

Whether it’s a season, a statue, or someone dearly loved, these poems hold a mirror to the ways we remember and the traces we leave behind.

📩 Got a favourite poem you’d like to hear? Let Phil know — listener requests are always welcome. Email avoic...

Sometimes, it’s not the moment itself—but what follows—that lingers the longest.

In the next episode of A Voice Like This, we reflect on change, memory, and the quiet traces we leave in the world around us. Three short but stirring poems guide us through the ache of farewell, the transience of pride, and the defiance of grief.

🎧 Listen Monday: Episode 10 – What We Leave Behind

Wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 9 – The House You Carry

Two poems exploring the quiet refuge we carry within.

Featuring:

Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare – a listener request

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats

A reminder that love, stillness, and self-worth can be found not in far-off places, but deep within us.

New episodes every Monday.

In this episode, Phil Rowe brings together two powerful poems that speak to the burden and beauty of being human.

One poem is beloved. The other, more quietly known.

One, fierce with instruction. The other, still with truth.

Together, they offer a reflection on how we carry ourselves through the world — and what we pass on.

Join Phil as he explores the unspoken tension between advice and acceptance, striving and surrender.

—

Poems:

If by R...

In this quietly resonant episode of A Voice Like This, Phil Rowe brings together two poems that speak to the art of paying attention — to ourselves, and to others.

First, Derek Walcott’s Love After Love offers a tender invitation to reconnect with the self we’ve lost sight of.

Then, Dylan Thomas’s In My Craft or Sullen Art reflects on the solitary work of the poet — creating not for recognition, but for love, for mystery, and for the unnamed listener.

Two quiet poems. Two enduring acts of care.

—

Poems:

In this quietly resonant episode of A Voice Like This, Phil Rowe brings together two poems that speak to the art of paying attention — to ourselves, and to others.

First, Derek Walcott’s Love After Love offers a tender invitation to reconnect with the self we’ve lost sight of.

Then, Dylan Thomas’s In My Craft or Sullen Art reflects on the solitary work of the poet — creating not for recognition, but for love, for mystery, and for the unnamed listener.

Two quiet poems. Two enduring acts of care.

This week, two very different worlds unfold.

Wendell Berry offers stillness — a moment away from the noise, where the natural world holds us gently.

Then Yeats pulls us back into chaos — his apocalyptic vision of a world unravelled, where the centre cannot hold.

New episodes every Monday, each just a few minutes — just the poems, spoken with care.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts.

If a line lingers, share it — or let me know on [email protected]

Next week on A Voice Like This, we start with stillness… and end in something else entirely.

New episodes every Monday, each just a few minutes long, just the poems, and a little time to chill.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this special bonus episode, Phil Rowe brings Edgar Allan Poe's iconic poem, The Raven, vividly to life. Immerse yourself in the atmospheric beauty of Poe's language and explore the timeless themes of loss, sorrow, and the haunting persistence of memory.

Poem: The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Episode Theme: Grief, longing, supernatural horror

For more poetry and reflections, subscribe to A Voice Like This.

In this special bonus episode, Phil Rowe brings Edgar Allan Poe's iconic poem, The Raven, vividly to life. Immerse yourself in the atmospheric beauty of Poe's language and explore the timeless themes of loss, sorrow, and the haunting persistence of memory.

The Light and the Echo

Poems featured:

She Walks in Beauty – Lord Byron

The Voice – Thomas Hardy

In this episode, two voices — separated by a century — speak across love’s distance.

Lord Byron offers admiration in its purest form with She Walks in Beauty: a brief, bright vision of someone seen, not claimed.

Then Thomas Hardy answers with The Voice, where love lingers in grief, and absence becomes almost audible.

New episodes every Monday, with the occasional bonus when the moment...

In this episode, two voices — separated by a century — speak across love’s distance.

Lord Byron offers admiration in its purest form: a brief, bright vision of someone seen, not claimed.

Then Thomas Hardy answers, where love lingers in grief, and absence becomes almost audible.

New episodes every Monday, with the occasional bonus when the moment calls.

You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And if a line or image stays with you — share it on.

Poems featured:

This episode brings together two quiet reflections on what remains after we go.

Shelley’s Music, When Soft Voices Die is a brief and delicate meditation — a few lines that linger like perfume in a room just left.

Then Stevenson’s Requiem — steady, resolved, and ready. A farewell written with peace in its bones.

New episodes every Monday, each one a small moment to breathe and listen.

Find A Voice Like This on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or...

This Monday on A Voice Like This, two poems that speak quietly about what we leave behind.

One lingers like a memory… the other accepts its end with calm resolve.

Shelley and Stevenson.

Two voices. One final breath.

Listen Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

🎙️ A Voice Like This – Episode 3: Stars and Shadows

Poets featured: John Keats and W. B. Yeats

In this episode, we hear from two poets separated by time — but connected by something quieter. Stillness, memory, longing.

Keats reaches toward the stars with Bright Star, his voice full of yearning for something that won’t change.

Yeats, in contrast, looks back — with tenderness, and perhaps regret — in When You Are Old.

New episodes every Monday, with the occasional bonus when the mood calls.

You can follow A Voice Like Th...

Coming Monday on A Voice Like This, I’ve paired two poems that sit quietly in the

space between love and time.

One looks up — full of longing and stillness.

The other looks back — with tenderness and

something left unsaid.

Keats and Yeats. Two voices, speaking across

the years.

Listen Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Poems featured:

In this episode, we move from shadow to sunlight — pairing two iconic poems that look at time, memory, and how the world shifts around us.

We begin with Poe’s A Dream Within a Dream, a haunting piece about illusion and loss — and then return to earth with Wordsworth’s beloved I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, where a single moment of beauty lingers long after it's passed.

New episodes every Monday, with the occ...

In this episode, we move from shadow to sunlight — pairing two iconic poems that look at time, memory, and how the world shifts around us.

We begin with Poe’s A Dream Within a Dream, a haunting piece about illusion and loss — and then return to earth with Wordsworth’s beloved I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, where a single moment of beauty lingers long after it's passed.

New episodes every Monday, with the occasional bonus when the mood strikes.

Find A Voice Like This on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to liste...