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What happens when a poet who survived prison sits down with the world's oldest war story—and reads it in three sleepless, wandering days? In this second episode of the EconTalk Book Club on the Iliad, Dwayne Betts and EconTalk host Russ Roberts trade their impressions of the Iliad, discovering it's less about war than about fathers, friendship, and the stubborn dignity people find inside fates they can't escape. Betts connects Achilles's rage and grief to his own experience of incarceration and depression, while Roberts marvels at Homer's cinematic style and the strange tenderness between enemies. Together, they unpack the shield of Achilles, the ransom of Hector's body, and how an ancient poem about war still cracks readers open today. It's a conversation about reading as communion—and how a 2,800-year-old story became, unexpectedly, a way of connecting to each other.
Listen to the episode here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of a memoir and three books of poetry. His memoir, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (Avery/Penguin, 2009), was awarded the 2010 NAACP Image Award for non-fiction. His books of poetry are Shahid Reads His Own Palm (Alice James, 2010), Bastards of the Reagan Era (Four Way Books, 2015), and Felon (W.W. Norton, 2019). Betts is a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow, 2011 Radcliffe Fellow, and 2012 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow. In 2012, Betts was appointed to the Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention by President Obama. He is a graduate of Prince George’s Community College, the University of Maryland, the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College, and is currently a PhD student at Yale Law School.
RELATED SOURCES
- Betts, Reginald Dwayne. Bastards of the Reagan Era. Four Way Books, 2015.
- Betts, Reginald Dwayne. “A Gun Derailed My Childhood. As an Adult, I Found Relief at the Range.” New York Times Magazine, May 8, 2026.
- “Reginald Dwayne Betts.” Freedom Reads.
- “Craig L. Gore.” Freedom Reads.
- “Amor Towles on A Gentleman in Moscow and the Writer’s Craft.” Econ Talk. Interview by Russ Roberts, August 29, 2022.
- “Dwayne Betts on Ellison, Levi, and Human Suffering.” Econ Talk. Interview by Russ Roberts. May 2, 2022.
- “EconTalk Book Club on the Iliad (with Ido Hevroni).” Econ Talk. Interview by Russ Roberts. July 6, 2026.
- “Reginald Dwayne Betts.” Econtalk.
- Freedom Reads. Official Website.
- Robert Hayden. “Those Winter Sundays.” Poetry Foundation.
- Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Classics, 1998.
- Randall Horton. Hook. Augury Books, 2015.
- Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. New York: W. W. Norton, 2023.
- March Forth. Documentary website.
- “Reginald Dwayne Betts: Polymath.” Alva Greenberg Gallery.
- Roberts, Russ. How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness. New York: Penguin Books, Limoted, 2014.
- “The Diameter of the Bomb.” By Yehuda Amichai. BillMoyers.com.
