Malcolm Guite is a beloved poet, singer-songwriter, Anglican priest, and scholar whose work explores the rich interplay between faith and the arts. He studied at Cambridge and Durham, and later served as chaplain and fellow of Girton College, Cambridge. His academic interests include writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, alongside broader questions of imagination and belief. Guite is the author of a number of poetry collections, including Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year, The Singing Bowl, and Love, Remember: 40 Poems of Loss, Lament and Hope, as well as books on theology and literature such as What Do Christians Believe?, Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God—all marked by a desire to be both thoughtful and beautiful. He also performs as a musician with the band Mystery Train and regularly shares reflections on poetry, faith, and culture. To read (and hear) more, visit his website at https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/, or watch his videos at https://www.youtube.com/@MalcolmGuitespell.
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We often remember poets for their words. But sometimes it is their way of seeing—and of helping others to see—that leaves something just as lasting. In this conversation, Malcolm Guite reflects on his friendship with Luci Shaw, a poet whose work (quietly, and persistently) attends to the small, the ordinary, and the easily overlooked. What follows is part tribute, part theological reflection, and part invitation: to recover attention in a distracted age, to rediscover rootedness in a restless one, and to notice the ways grace so often arrives unannounced. Along the way, Guite offers stories, poems, and insights into the kind of literary friendship that doesn’t demand imitation—but instead helps another voice become more fully itself.…