Episode 19: The Literary Life of Greg Wilbur

In this episode of The Literary Life, Cindy and Angelina interview Greg Wilbur. A composer, music minister, and the president of New College Franklin, Greg has also been friends with both Cindy and Angelina for several years. After sharing their commonplace quotes, and all the meaty discussion that surrounded the topics in those quotes, Cindy asks Greg when he became aware that he was a reader. Greg talks about growing up in a reading family, as well as the influence of his high school English teacher. During his college years, Greg minored in English, and he tells about his favorite professor and the great works he had the privilege to study.

Cindy, Angelina and Greg chat about building a library without letting reading and book-buying becoming too much of an obsession. Greg also talks about his strategies to keep reading widely and get himself out of a reading slump. Angelina and Greg agree on the value of reading for pleasure as well as work and keeping track of what type of books you are dipping into daily. Cindy also asks Greg the million dollar question–to name a few of his favorite authors. Finally, Angelina asks Greg how his view of literature has shaped what he does at New College Franklin.

You can find Greg’s music at WilburMusic.com.

Listen to The Lit Life:

Arabia

by Walter de la Mare

Far are the shades of Arabia,
Where the Princes ride at noon,
‘Mid the verdurous vales and thickets,
Under the ghost of the moon;
And so dark is that vaulted purple
Flowers in the forest rise
And toss into blossom ‘gainst the phantom stars
Pale in the noonday skies.

Sweet is the music of Arabia
In my heart, when out of dreams
I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn
Descry her gliding streams;
Hear her strange lutes on the green banks
Ring loud with the grief and delight
Of the dim-silked, dark-haired Musicians
In the brooding silence of night.

They haunt me — her lutes and her forests;
No beauty on earth I see
But shadowed with that dream recalls
Her loveliness to me:
Still eyes look coldly upon me,
Cold voices whisper and say —
‘He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia,
They have stolen his wits away.’