He was also a Professor of Theology and Literature at the University of Chicago jointly in the Divinity School and in the New Collegiate Division.
His seminars and research explored the relations between poetry and religion, among other interdisciplinary concerns.
Stanley Kunitz wrote:[1] Henry Rago’s special gift permits him to strike for the absolute as an act of meditation, and yet to remain wakeful for the surprises of poetry.
I mean that Henry Rago, who began with a surpassing lyrical talent and a mind as quick as a fish, has stood off the blandishments of his own abilities; which is a more particular way of saying that he has resisted the temptations of poetry.
In these splendid, almost unbelievable poems, Rago bring back the crystalline, Arielesque quality that poets forty years ago considered indispensable – compression without density, harmony without artifice.