Malcolm Guite

Ayodeji Malcolm Guite (; born 12 November 1957) is an English poet, singer-songwriter, Anglican priest and academic. Born in Nigeria to British expatriate parents, Guite earned degrees from the University of Cambridge and Durham University. His research interests include the intersection of religion and the arts, and the examination of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, and British poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was a Bye-Fellow and chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge, and an associate chaplain of St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge. On several occasions, he has taught as visiting faculty at several colleges and universities in England and North America.

Guite is the author of five books of poetry, including two chapbooks and three full-length collections, as well as several books on Christian faith and theology. Guite has a decisively simple, formalist style in his poems, many of which are sonnets, and he stated that his aim is to "be profound without ceasing to be beautiful." He also has a YouTube page, where he shares his passions and musings with his viewers.

Early life and education Guite was born on 12 November 1957 in Ibadan, Oyo State, in the Federation of Nigeria. At birth, he was given the first name Ayodeji which is a Yoruba tribal name meaning "the second joy". According to Guite, the name was suggested to his mother by the Yoruba nurse who attended to her through a difficult childbirth and who Guite states probably saved his and his mother's lives. After graduating, Guite taught for several years as a secondary-school teacher before deciding to seek a doctoral degree, and obtained his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from Durham University in 1993. While researching the topic of his dissertation, in considering the struggles of John Donne with a similar question in the early seventeenth-century, Guite began to wonder if God was calling him too to be a priest. As a deacon he was first assigned to a parish on "the Oxmoor estate in Huntingdon". He described this period as not having much time for writing sonnets, saying: "being a priest and a poet feels a very natural combination now. It didn’t at first".

Guite teaches in the pastoral theology graduate programme at the Cambridge Theological Federation where he frequently advises "clergy who are returning to academia to do a dissertation to reflect on their often amazing parish experiences". From 2003 he was chaplain and Bye-Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge. Guite describes the focus of his research interests as "the interface between theology and the arts, more specifically Theology and Literature" and "special interests in Coleridge and C. S. Lewis" as well as J. R. R. Tolkien and British poets.

Guite performs as a singer and guitarist fronting the Cambridgeshire-based blues, rhythm and blues, and rock band Mystery Train. Since then he has collaborated with Bell on several tracks, including The Glad Surprise (2025). A complete collection of their collaborations, including two previously unreleased songs and entitled The Bell and the Bard, will be released in 2026.

In January 2017 Guite was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Great Lives Series, together with Suzannah Lipscomb, on how C. S. Lewis had inspired her life.

Guite writes the weekly "Poet's Corner" column for the Church Times, an Anglican newspaper. He has also been interviewed several times on the newspaper's podcast.

Poetry and persona

Guite's poetry has been characterised as modern-day metaphysical poems and psalms. Guite's poetry tends to conform to traditional forms, especially the sonnet, and employs both rhyme and metre. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, remarked that Guite "knows exactly how to use the sonnet form to powerful effect" and that his poems "offer deep resources for prayer and meditation to the reader". Concerning Guite's collection Sounding the Seasons, the English poet and literary critic Grevel Lindop remarked: "using the sonnet form with absolute naturalness as he traces the year and its festivals, he offers the reader—whether Christian or not—profound and beautiful utterance which is patterned but also refreshingly spontaneous." In a review of Guite's collection The Singing Bowl, Kevin Belmonte, a Huffington Post contributor who has written biographies of William Wilberforce and G. K. Chesterton, describes Guite as a "questing poet" whose poems "point to places of possibility—in everything—from the commonplace to the transcendent" and explore "what it means to persist in the presence of a God who hears and knows us in time of trouble". Belmonte has further characterised Guite as an English national treasure. Guite has described himself in interviews as "a poet, priest, rock & roller, in any order you like, really. I'm the same person in all three." 2011: Dancing through the Fire

Poetry 2002: Saying the Names 2004: The Magic Apple Tree 2012: Sounding the Seasons: Seventy sonnets for Christian year (Canterbury Press Norwich) 2013: The Singing Bowl (Canterbury Press Norwich) 2016: Parable and Paradox (Canterbury Press) 2017: Love, Remember: 40 Poems of Loss, Lament and Hope (Canterbury Press Norwich) 2019: After Prayer (Canterbury Press) 2021: David's Crown (Canterbury Press) 2026: Galahad and the Grail: Merlin's Isle Volume 1 (Canterbury Press) }

Christian theology and practice 2000: Beholding the Glory: Incarnation through the Arts, Jeremy S. Begbie (Editor), (Baker Academic) 2008: What Do Christians Believe?: Belonging and Belief in Modern Christianity (Walker & Company) 2012: Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination (Ashgate, Ashgate Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts) 2014: Reflections for Lent 2015 (Church House Publishing) (as chapter contributor) 2014: Word in the Wilderness (Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd) (as editor) 2015: Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany (Canterbury Press) 2017: Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder & Stoughton) 2018: In Every Corner Sing: A Poet's Corner Collection (Canterbury Press Norwich) 2020: Heaven in Ordinary: A Poet's Corner Collection (Canterbury Press Norwich) 2021: Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God (Square Halo Books) 2022: The Word Within the Words (Darton, Longman, and Todd) 2023: Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God (Square Halo Books) (as contributor) 2023: Sounding Heaven and Earth: A Poet’s Corner Collection (Canterbury Press Norwich)

Fiction 2022: The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad (Rabbit Room Press) (as contributor)