Erase Genesis
“By redacting the same three chapters in different ways, I approached this book as a kind of literary translation. When I am translating, I come again and again to the source text; I come to participate in its creation. And in so doing, I am created; I am changed. I do not come to the text to assault it or upstage it. I come to know it. And in knowing it, I become a part of what really does want to be fruitful and multiply: the human imagination for connection.
The Book of Genesis can never be erased.”
— Rebecca Gayle Howell
Wir
The new song cycle by Esmail & Howell
Commissioned and premiered by violinist Hilary Hahn & baritone Matthias Goerne for their 2026 US tour
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In this time of constant noise, Wir invites us to remember that silence is the nourishing gift we now most need.
Written by poet Rebecca Gayle Howell, this new bespoke text moves us through a lyric elegy for the quiet we risk losing. As Howell prays for its return, she weaves her own English poetry with German fragments from Paul Celan, a poet survivor of the Holocaust who knew all too well the dangers caused by constant din.
We begin with a sober chant— Die Urnen der Stille sind leer / Die Urnen der Stille sind leer / Silence, your ash is spread. As the cycle advances, the two poets call and respond to each other in a dialogue that echoes across the canyons of history into our present hope that it’s not too late to recover solitude.
Wir is composed by Reena Esmail for violinist Hilary Hahn and baritone Matthias Goerne. At their request, there is no piano between them: audiences will experience only violin and voice, accompanied by nothing but the silence the piece seeks. These two exceptional voices meet one another in disquiet and rest, requiem and revelation as they reveal what the divine Noone says once the noise falls away.
Wir – the German word for We. Poly-vocal, bilingual, and minimal, Esmail & Howell's Wir whirls with faith that silence can still guide us back to one another and to ourselves.
For Rebecca Gayle Howell art is a practice of place, the Earth’s intelligence, which is always specific and always divine.
Working from rural Kentucky, Howell roots in the most human of forms: the spiritual imagination—as she merges modes like myth and realism across song, poetry, and prose.
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Also an award-winning editor, she is well known for her generous precision as she helps writers locate their stories, as well as their voice.
RECENT WORK
behold
Behold is a Substack for everyday contemplatives who want to remember awe is a birthright. There, Rebecca shares her practice of attention and builds a community to do the same.
Songs, stories, and poems are systems of pattern-making. So is the universe. My life gets a whole lot more interesting when I remember that I am not just another pattern-maker, I am a part of the hum.
– Rebecca Gayle Howell