Ralph Vaughan Williams set Whitman’s “Reconciliation” at a moment of profound moral weight — and it has haunted listeners and scholars ever since. What did the poet mean to the composer? Why this poem, and why does it still provoke debate more than a century after Whitman wrote it?

Ed Folsom, PhD has spent his career answering questions like these. Roy J. Carver Professor Emeritus at the University of Iowa, Editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, and Co-Editor of the Walt Whitman Archive, Folsom is among the world’s leading authorities on Whitman’s life, language, and lasting reach. In “What Walt Whitman Meant to Ralph Vaughan Williams,” he focuses on the final movement of Dona Nobis Pacem — the wondrous, aching setting of “Reconciliation” — and traces why Vaughan Williams was so taken with it, and why the poem itself remains one of the most contested works Whitman ever wrote.

The lecture is free and requires no ticket. It takes place at 2:00 pm on June 7 in the Voxman Music Building VOX2, one hour before Chamber Singers of Iowa City perform Dona Nobis Pacem with full orchestra, soprano Dr. Stella Dayrit Roden, and baritone Jeremiah Sanders. Whether you’re a Whitman devotee, a Vaughan Williams admirer, or simply curious what connects a Civil War elegy to a 20th-century plea for peace — this is the place to start.