On Tuesday, Oct. 15 the Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite delivered a lecture entitled "The Poetry of Music and the Music of Poetry: Some Reflections on John Donne, George Herbert and Others." Ayodeji Malcolm Guite is a poet and priest in the Church of England. The author of many books of both poetry and theology, including Sounding the Seasons: Sonnets for the Liturgical Year, and Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God, Guite has also collected multiple anthologies of poetry, has his own YouTube channel, and frequently collaborates with musicians.
Born in Nigeria, where his father was a Methodist minister, Guite was sent to boarding school in England at a young age. Years later, his return to faith came about through the poetry of John Keats, and he eventually pursued ordination after graduate work on George Herbert, one of the Anglican poets he will speak about tonight. His own poetry is shaped by these traditional forms but is marked by Guite’s use of clear and contemporary language. Like the American poet Christian Wiman, Guite’s work is concerned with the spiritual life and how that interior life can be expressed through creative acts of imagination. For many years a chaplain at Girton College Cambridge, Guite is no stranger to college campuses and to spiritual seekers from all over the world.
