A Voice Like This

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 experiencing.

Two very different teachers, perhaps offering much the same lesson.

Poems featured:

On Teaching - Kahlil Gibran

The Tables Turned - William Wordsworth

A Voice Like This brings poetry off the page and into the spoken word, with a new episode each week.

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 year.

Poems featured:

To Autumn - John Keats

Spring and Fall: to a young child - Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Voice Like This brings poetry off the page and into the spoken word, with a new episode each week.

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 you a peaceful, gentle, and truly joyful Christmas.

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 steadfast in the face of all that seeks to alter it.

Together, these poems remind us that the strongest bonds are often the quietest - built with care, and trusted to hold.

Poems featured:

• Scaffolding – Seamus Heaney
• Sonnet 116 – William Shakespeare

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.

Poems featured:

• "I Dream a World" by Langston Hughes
• "The Human Family" by Maya Angelou

Available wherever you get your podcast

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 ordinary… and to choose, with intention, how we spend the time we’re given.

Together, these poems form a meditation on gratitude:

gratitude for each breath, for each moment of kindness, for each connection that shapes us, and for the lives that leave an imprint long after they’re gone.

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 keep the light within you burning.

Together, these poems remind us that joy isn’t always grand or dramatic. Sometimes it’s soft, sometimes it’s ordinary -but it’s always worth noticing.

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 is not only about pride, but about understanding.

The silence we keep each November is more than an act of memory — it is an act of truth.