GUILFORD — “Preachers and Poets,” the third collaborative poetry reading by Tom Ragle and Don McLean, will be presented on Thursday, April 21, at Guilford Community Church at 7 p.m. Admission is by a donation in any amount to benefit the work of the church.
This program, the third in the series, takes its title from the fact that four of the poets were also ordained ministers in three different denominations, with Anglicans George Herbert and Robert Herrick, and, at nearly opposite poles, both strict in their particular ways, American Puritan Edward Taylor and the English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Another connection between the poets is that a majority did not see their poetry published in their lifetimes, and several were unknown to the public, including Emily Dickinson, who joins the lineup.
Completing the cast of three English and three American poets is Walt Whitman. Numerous and interesting connections in both subject matter and technique among these poets will be revealed during the evening.
Ragle served as president of Marlboro College from 1958 to 1981. He served for many years on the board of Write Action, a nonprofit organization formed to nurture, encourage and promote the literary arts in the Brattleboro area, and has been featured on Brattleboro's community radio station, WVEW-FM 107.7, reading poetry during the Write Action Radio Hour on Sundays.
His collection of poems, “Take this Song: Poems in Pursuit of Meaning,” was published in 2013 under his pen name, Lee Bramble.
McLean has taught courses in New England Literature at Community College of Vermont, and is known for his public readings of the works of Guilford Federalist-era poet, Royall Tyler.
For four decades he has annually read works of Hardy, Dickens, Truman Capote, Dylan Thomas and other authors on Friends of Music's Christ Church Christmas program. Last year, he organized Guilford's celebration of the centenary of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas's birth with readings and a performance of “Under Milkwood.” In 2013, he published the book “Sparks,” the collected writings of his mother, Jean Stewart McLean, on the 50th anniversary of her death.