Three-event Berea College Celebration Highlights Kentucky Poet’s “Bucolics” Collection

March 30, 2026

BEREA, Ky. – Berea College will host a free three-event celebration of The Bucolics Project – a musical collaboration between Kentucky poet Maurice Manning and Vermont composer Brendan Taaffe – on campus in late April. 

Born out of a 10-year collaboration, The Bucolics Project reimagines Manning’s award-winning 2007 collection “Bucolics” as song. 

A native of Danville, Kentucky, Manning’s poetry collection features 70 unpunctuated, untitled poems celebrating rural life and nature, framed as conversations with a divine figure named “Boss.” Each poem uses a lyrical, Appalachian voice to explore themes including labor, creation and spirituality, focusing on sacred details of the natural world. By definition, a “bucolic” is a pastoral poem. 

In The Bucolics Project, each song is based on an archival recording of Eastern Kentucky singers like Addie Graham, Jean Ritchie, Roscoe Holcomb and Old Regular Baptist congregations.

Performed by an all-star cast including Sarah Kate Morgan, Erin Shea Hogan, Elsie Gawler, Sarah Gibson, Stefan Amidon and Brendan Taaffe, The Bucolics Project encompasses ballads, hymns and fiddle tunes along with spoken word by Manning and a ‘crankie,’ an illustrated moving panorama. 

“The songs that make up the Bucolics Project are sublime,” said Sam Gleaves, an instructor in the Berea College Music Department. “Each song feels rooted in tradition and relevant to the modern listener. The vocal arrangements are splendid and accompanied beautifully with a host of traditional instruments: fiddle, guitar, mountain dulcimer, banjo, pump organ, bass and percussion. It is wonderful to see these songs come full circle from their conception during Brendan Taaffe’s Sound Archives Fellowship to the performance of the songs on stage at Berea College.

“I feel that Berea College students and our community will be inspired by this collaboration between Taaffe and Manning because it celebrates Kentucky’s legacy of music and poetry in an innovative, fresh way,” Gleaves added.

Creation of the Bucolics Project was made possible in part by a Research Fellowship from the Appalachian Sound Archives at Berea College and by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council.

All events are free and open to the public.

The three events are: 

Saturday April 25, 2026

Monday, April 27

The event is a collaboration between Berea College’s Department of Music, Loyal Jones Appalachian Center and Hutchins Library Special Collections and Archives.

For questions, call (859) 985-3471.