By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

John Tagliabue, an acclaimed Maine poet and retired Bates College professor who inspired a generation of students with his unique view of the world, died Wednesday.

He was 82.

Tagliabue, an Italian immigrant, fell in love with the arts at a young age. He delighted in theater and music, often breaking into dance the moment the mood struck. But it was poetry that captured his soul, friends said. He wrote and read constantly, and in 1953 he brought that passion to Bates College in Lewiston as an English professor.

“He was a mystical and emotional and very artistic person,” said William Hiss, vice president for external affairs at Bates and one of Tagliabue’s former students.

A creative man with a flair for drama, Tagliabue liked to cover his classroom chalkboards with inspirational literary quotes and enlist his students in acting in the puppet shows he wrote. He wrote poetry daily and celebrated literature, and that enthusiasm inspired his students, sending them flying to their own work.

A deeply philosophical and political person, Tagliabue also ensured that his students were firmly grounded in world events. While other professors focused on American or European literature, he taught modern Japanese, Russian and Chinese fiction, even at the height of the Cold War.

“John is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a world citizen. Everything he taught reflected that,” said Hiss, who, inspired by Tagliabue, plans to teach his own course on Russian, Japanese and Vietnamese fiction next year.

Tagliabue broke his teaching schedule only to travel and teach abroad. He was a Fulbright Scholar several times and went to Indonesia and Japan, among other places.

“He was overjoyed with and overcome by the world,” said Robert Farnsworth, a friend and an English professor at Bates.

Tagliabue remained at Bates for 36 years, retiring in 1989. He and his wife, Grace, moved to Rhode Island in 1998.

During his life, Tagliabue wrote thousands of poems and six books of poetry. His poems ran the gamut, from light to serious, philosophical to political. They sometimes touched on humanity, including Tagliabue’s observations of the world.

“John was in his poems,” his wife said.

Tagliabue’s poems were critically acclaimed. But among former students and family members, his long, handwritten letters were as highly prized.

Tagliabue continued to write – both poetry and letters – until recently, when pancreatic cancer made him too sick. He died Wednesday from complications of the disease, his family said.

He is survived by his wife, his two daughters, Dina and Francesca, and several grandchildren.

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