News » John Tagliabue

The John Tagliabue Poetry Fund

Bates News — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:21:17 +0000

Funding for the John Tagliabue Poetry Fund was initiated by a lead gift of $10,000 from close friends of John and Grace Tagliabue’s.

John Tagliabue taught literature at Bates from 1953 until his retirement in 1989, and was a prolific and imaginative poet. During his decades on the Bates faculty, he gave readings himself, brought to campus many of the leading poetic voices of the 20th century, and was a friend to poets and creative artists around the world.

When fully funded at $50,000, the John Tagliabue Poetry Fund, a permanent endowment fund, will support poetry at Bates by bringing poets to campus for readings and other creative work, for residencies and teaching by poets and by offering support to students and faculty involved in the composition of poetry. The Tagliabue Fund income may also be used for support of and scholarship with the materials which the Tagliabue family has given or may give to Bates College: unpublished poetry, manuscripts and journals, letters, Grace Tagliabue’s prints of John’s poems, puppets, artwork, collections of books and the like.

The administration of the fund will be under the Dean of Faculty. Faculty, staff and students can apply for support from the fund. If the income from the Fund permits, it could support a learning associate or professorial teaching appointment, with preference for poetry. The income from the fund may be supplemented on occasion with other funding sources to fulfill the purposes of the John Tagliabue Poetry Fund. If there are no applications in a given year for support from the fund, the interest will accrue to the fund.

The John Tagliabue Poetry Fund is given by family members, friends, former students,and colleagues to honor the service to the Bates community of John and Grace Tagliabue.

Established in 2006.

English professor to read from his poetry

Bates News — Fri, 11 Sep 1998 18:03:46 +0000

Poet John Tagliabue, professor emeritus of English at Bates College, will read from his poetry Thursday, Sept. 24, at 8 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

Tagliabue has published six collections of poetry, most recently New and Selected Poems: 1942-1997 (National Poetry Foundation, 1998). Born in Cantu, Italy, and raised in North Bergen, N.J., from the age of four, he has been a Fulbright professor in Pisa, Tokyo, Shanghai and Jakarta. Tagliabue received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia University, studying during the 1940s with Allen Ginsburg and John Kerouac. The author of 12 puppet plays for children and the recipient of Karolyi and Rockefeller Foundation grants for writing, Tagliabue arrived at Bates in 1953 and retired from the faculty in 1989. Recently, he and his wife, Grace, moved from Lewiston to Providence, R.I. Poet Amy Clampitt wrote of his work, “John Tagliabue writes out of a deeply sacramental sense of nature and history. He is, moreover, that rare person to whom poetry appears to come as naturally as breathing.”

Tagliabue’s reading is part of a series of poetry readings sponsored by the English department at Bates. The next reading will feature Portland poet Betsy Sholl reading from her work Oct. 14.

Poetry reading at Bates has been canceled

Bates News — Wed, 24 Sep 1997 15:04:59 +0000

The poetry reading by John Tagliabue, professor emeritus of English, at 8 p.m. Oct. 9 has been canceled. The event, as listed in the Fall 1997 Bates Cultural Calendar, has not been rescheduled.