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  #1  
Unread 01-27-2003, 09:59 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Richard Wilbur, A Personal Reminiscence

As I have previously written, R.P. Warren once told me to seek Richard Wilbur’s counsel on my efforts to write in meter and rhyme “cause he’s the best man we’ve got.” As a teenager I was far from ready for that. I had Wilbur’s Poems, the volume that collected his early books. What I had first fallen in love with were the translations, particularly the Francis Jammes “Going to Paradise,” Philippe de Thaun’s “Pelican,” and Baudelaire’s “L’invitation au Voyage.” I was making my first, halting efforts to translate bawdy epigrams from the Greek Anthology, and it was inconceivable to me that anyone could produce such flawless poems in English which so accurately captured the great originals I could dimly comprehend with my rudimentary grasp of French.

By 1977 I was thoroughly acquainted with Wilbur and stood in awe. Here was a fellow only 30 years my senior who was bidding fair to succeed Auden as the great poet of the English language. By that time I was pretty fluent in iambic pentameter, and I sent him a sheaf of my long, rhymed, narrative poems. He promptly responded that although he made it a rule never to respond to such over-the-transom communications, he was making an exception in my case. He crisply told me what I was doing right, but added “Just because you are writing on the themes of Cavafy does not excuse you from the task of sufficiently charging your language.” I was crushed, but better, I was forced to rethink my entire poetic enterprise. We corresponded on occasion during the next two years, after which I started farming and hunting with a passion and writing in densely rhymed trimeter.

In 1994 it was time for me to crawl out from under my rock, and I wrote Wilbur again. This time the response was far more collegial: “I am surprised and delighted to see how far you have come. Everywhere I look in this manuscript I find accurate words, live rhythms.” Of course I was absolutely elated. Alan and I were soon bound for the Virgin Islands with a side trip to Key West. Upon arrival I called to ask for directions, a map of the island before me. Dick said, “You’ll note the island is a grid with one diagonal street.” I said, “Oh, you’re near the cemetary.” “Very near the cemetary, young man,” he laughed. We made an appointment for the following morning, and I proceeded to become violently ill with anticipation. Fortified by several jolts of Jack Daniels’, I found my way to Windsor Lane. Having never even seen a picture of Wilbur, and expecting this meticulous crafter of verse to be small, Alan and I were surprised to encounter a jovial and enormous fellow.

I was so naïve, so isolated, that I thought I was meeting the only competent formal poet writing in English. I managed to ask how our great art had died. He gave me copies of The Formalist, The Epigrammatist, and Tim Steele’s Missing Measures, assured me that a resurgence of verse was gaining momentum, and urged me to get in touch with Tim and begin publishing. That evening we took the Wilburs to dinner, and my first question was how had he managed to outlive and outwrite so many of his contemporaries. Charlee laughed merrily and assured us that it was solely due to his having married so well. It was apparent to both of us that these people were deeply in love, and I recited them the very early ME lyric “Alisoun,” with which they were unfamiliar. They were touched, and our friendship with that remarkable couple dates from that day.

There would be many trips to Key West, many trips to Cummington. Soon I was armed with a reading list, Robert Francis, Tim Steele, Sam Gwynn, poets I’d never heard of who deeply delighted me. But above all I was re-reading Wilbur and being influenced as I was in my youth when I had come to terms with Frost, Yeats, and Hardy. My own verse had been so bleak, and here was a poet whose understanding of the human condition was profoundly redemptive and grounded in a faith I did not share. As I read in manuscript such poems as “For C” and “Mayflies,” the great work of Wilbur’s old age, he became my favorite Christian poet since Herbert. When Suzanne Doyle, a poet as black as Murphy, read Mayflies, the book, she wrote me a note I paraphrase in the final couplet of this little poem, written in the Lake District last year:

Coniston, The Old Man

Give me today the sturdy boots
to crush this springing sod,
these florets sheathed within their shoots,
I could not walk with God.

A friend wrote of a poet who
merits his Maker’s love,
“Grace has found him in ways that you
and I are ignorant of.”

Yeats told us a man must must choose between the life and the work. Richard has succeeded spendidly in both. For his friendship, his patronage, and above all his example, I am profoundly grateful.



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  #2  
Unread 01-27-2003, 10:46 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is online now
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Wonderful story, Tim. And I think the phrase "accurate words, live rhythms" is a wonderfully concise explanation of what we're all trying to achieve. Thanks for giving us this glimpse.
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  #3  
Unread 01-27-2003, 03:15 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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I'd like to invite all our members to post their own personal reactions to Wilbur on this thread. Is there a poem which is particularly valued by you, and why? Or if you want to be a skunk at the picnic, go right ahead!

Over the next couple of days, I shall post the eight poems I'm asking Dick to comment on, each on its own thread. He won't appear until Feb 4 at the earliest, and I welcome your comments on these poems in the meantime. I think they are fairly representative of our best work here at the Sphere. In the meantime, continue to post your questions for Wilbur on the adjacent thread.

yours, Tim
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  #4  
Unread 01-27-2003, 10:49 PM
Kevin Andrew Murphy Kevin Andrew Murphy is offline
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Well, Wilbur's influence on my work goes back to high school, when I found his translation of Moliere's "The Learned Ladies" on the bargain table at Waldenbooks. I bought it, read it, and loved it. That, along with Chaucer (I'd also bought the Wife of Bath and Miller's Tale coloring books) inspired me to write narrative verse plays, which got me to the finals of the California State Speech Competitions three years running in the Original Prose and Poetry category.

From the prologue of one:

...a snobbish headmistress with her hair in a bun,
seventeen little girls, and a gunslinging nun...
Before us now the scene unfurls:
St. Augustina's School for Girls,
a building of brick, with stories four.
A nun is standing at the door.


There was much more, of course. Mass combat, dragon attacks, schoolgirls with grenades, that sort of thing, all performed as a one-man show.

I'm working as a fantasy novelist now, so please thank him for me.
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  #5  
Unread 01-28-2003, 02:06 PM
GlennNicholls GlennNicholls is offline
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As a 43-year old engineer with an MBA in management, I have absolutely no education in poetry or literature. Nevertheless, I took an interest in the subject a few years back and started reading everything I could find in terms of anthologies and "how-to" manuals. Then, after browsing the poetry section in Barnes and Noble, Borders, et. al., I was convinced that all contemporary poetry was either too abstract, exclusively free verse, overly confessional, etc. So, I clung to Frost and other anchors.

But then by accident, I found Wibur's collection. My version has so many dog ears that it's a mini-accordion!

I'm inspired by his ability to reach out and grab me - rhyme, lively meter, wit, complexity of thought, varied stanza forms, breadth of subject matter, etc.

Anyone who loves Wilbur should purchase <u>Mayflies: New Poems and Translations</u>. It's a delightful read.

He will always be my standard bearer!

Glenn



[This message has been edited by GlennNicholls (edited January 29, 2003).]
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  #6  
Unread 01-29-2003, 01:46 PM
oliver murray oliver murray is offline
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In Ireland, although I had written some fiction and always read a good deal of verse, I had encountered plenty of fiction, but no poetry from the United States, apart from Poe and Longfellow, a poem of two by Alan Seeger and a few by Robert Frost. I first remember hearing of Richard Wilbur around 1980 in the introduction by John Holmes to Langford Reed’s “Rhyming Dictionary,” where he was quoted on the subject of rhyme. Around the same time, I read a very illuminating interview with Mr Wilbur by John Ciardi, “The Genie In The Bottle” in “Writing Poetry”, again by John Holmes.

When I recently made a real attempt to write poetry myself, and then metric verse, I found his name was everywhere, not only on the Eratosphere Boards, but in works by Mary Kinzie, Mary Oliver, Anthony Steele, Judson Jerome, Steve Kowit and others, with extracts or full versions of his remarkable poems, and, of course, I found him in anthologies such as "The Penguin Book Of The Sonnet" and "101 Sonnets" among others. Only recently I was delighted by his “Parable” in Mary Oliver’s “ Rules For The Dance.” and by poems such as “Lot’s Wife” and the stunning “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World.” What an example to us these poems are! I still have a lot of ground to make up and am looking forward to reading Mr Wilbur’s collected works.



[This message has been edited by oliver murray (edited January 29, 2003).]
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  #7  
Unread 01-29-2003, 02:44 PM
Terese Coe Terese Coe is offline
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Tim, you really should write memoirs of all the poets you've known. I know you have years to go before you sleep, but I wish you'd post more of these anecdotes on Lariat, then eventually pull them all together in a book! Or several books.

I have no Richard Wilbur stories, but I've been dipping into his Moliere translations; two of the exceptional characteristics of his dramatic/translation style are elegance and focus. He never wastes words. Even when translating references to prostitution, he is the epitome of classy.

One example appears in Mayflies:

Night:
It's not the prettiest of tasks
That Jupiter would have me do!
There's a sweet name for creatures who
Perform the service that he asks!

Mercury:
For a young goddess, you embrace
Old-fashioned notions, it seems to me:
To do such service isn't base
Except in those of low degree.

When one is blessed with high estate and standing,
All that one does is good as gold,
And things have different names, depending
On what position one may hold.


Moliere's satire bears many similarites to the historical commedia dell'arte of Italy, which used stock characters and broad pratfalls. Wilbur's elegance provides a distinct counterpoint to the wonderful low mockeries, as in the following sarcastic speech by the male Sganarelle in The School for Husbands:

I see: I mustn't wear what clothes I please,
But must submit to fashion's wise decrees!
Do you propose, by precepts so bizarre,
Dear elder brother—for that is what you are
By 20 blessed years, I must confess,
Although of course it couldn't matter less—
Do you propose, I say, to force me to
Adorn myself as your young dandies do?
To wear those little hats which leave their brains,
Such as they are, exposed to wind and rains,
And those immense blond wigs which hide their features
And make one doubt that they are human creatures?
Those tiny doublets, cut off at armpit-level,
Those collars hanging almost to the navel,
Those sleeves that drag through soups and gravy boats,
And those huge breeches, loose as petticoats?
Those small, beribboned slippers, too neat for words,
Which make them look like feather-footed birds?
Those rolls of lace they force their legs to wear
Like the leg irons that slaves and captives bear,
So that we see each fop and fashion plate
Walk like a pigeon, with a waddling gait?
You'd have me dress like that? I note with loathing
That you're attired in just such modish clothing.


I've decided on one or two questions which I'll post on the other Wilbur thread.

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  #8  
Unread 01-29-2003, 02:45 PM
R. S. Gwynn's Avatar
R. S. Gwynn R. S. Gwynn is offline
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The other day I got one of the nicest compliments I've ever received. A woman I know, who is a high school English teacher, attended a professional meeting in Key West where Richard Wilbur was the keynote speaker. After Wilbur's reading, as I understand the story, she hurried to the front of a long line to get her book signed by the poet. She apologized for the rush but explained that she was in a hurry to make a plane connection back to Beaumont. "Beaumont?" said Mr. Wilbur. "You must know Sam Gwynn. I like his poetry."

My correspondence with Wilbur dates from my undergraduate days. I had seen his translations of three Villon ballades in Poetry, and I hastily churned out what I thought was a ballade and sent it to him. How I got his address remains a mystery, but soon I received one of those meticulously typed postcards in response. He was kind, and has unfailingly been so since. He did not bother to point out that what I thought was a ballade employed about a dozen rhymes instead of the requisite three.

My first meeting with him dates from roughly the same period, the spring of 1969, I believe. I drove from Davidson up to Roanoke to hear him read at Hollins College on the occasion of some sort of undergraduate literary festival. By the time I met him, I knew his poems fairly well (I can't remember if we were using The Poems of Richard Wilbur in a class or whether I'd bought it on my own). As I recall, Walking to Sleep had just appeared, and I spoke with him briefly at the signing. That he remembered my name and the poem I'd sent still strikes me as miraculous, but one learns to accept the miraculous where Mr. Wilbur is concerned.

If my three wishes are ever granted, one of them would be just to have dinner and drinks with Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur, as Tim Murphy and Alan Sullivan have done on several occasions. We had a date for such an event a few years back, but the Wilburs were delayed in getting to Key West and my wife and I had to leave before they came to town. Time and distance being what they are, I guess that four or five very quick visits after readings over the years will have to suffice.

My short list of favorite Wilbur poems is no short list at all, and I would indeed wear out my welcome here if I were to attempt to list them all. If I may confine myself to a single poem, I direct the reader to "Year's End." There are several worlds packed into that short lyric--it is as near a perfect poem as I have ever read, with the exception, of course, of a couple dozen more by the same poet.

I salute Tim and Alan for making his comments available to Eratosphere, and I look forward to reading them in coming days.
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  #9  
Unread 01-29-2003, 03:00 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is online now
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When I attended Brown University in the early 70's, we were very fortunate to be visited quite often by fine poets. The readings were generally held in student lounges with about 50-75 people in attendance. When Richard Wilbur came to town, the reading took place in a large church down the hill to accomodate the hundreds of people who wanted to attend.

After he read "Love Calls Us To The Things of This World," I remember that Mr. Wilbur seemed upset because he had apparently read one of the words incorrectly (a small detail involving a preposition, I believe). I for one certainly hadn't noticed, but I remember that he seemed very disappointed at his minor mistake, and he told us that the slip had, in effect, ruined the poem. I was eighteen years old, newly interested in writing poetry, and his chagrin at such a small mistake was what made the biggest impression on me. It may seem obvious now, but it taught me the importance of every word.

He signed my copy of his collected works, and I proudly held onto that volume (with growing enjoyment of its contents) until three years ago when it burned up in a fire. I have a more recent Collected works now, this time in hardcover, but it lacks the autograph.

"Love Calls Us To The Things of This World" may be (predictably?) my favorite Wilbur poem, but there are many (including some written forty or fifty years later) that come quite close. I can't imagine a more "accurate" or moving rendition of my own daily waking than "The soul shrinks/ From all that it is about to remember" or a more satisfying resolution whereby the soul becomes unshrunk (I love those "ruddy gallows" and the "backs of thieves"). This is a poem that employs humor and wit yet (for me and many others) can move a person to tears.

These days I think we should be reading "Advice for a Prophet" more than ever. What more "accurate" phrase is there than "Our slow, unreckoning hearts"?


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  #10  
Unread 01-29-2003, 05:35 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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"Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends."
--WBY

I might not be much good, but I'm damn lucky, always finding myself in the right place to be found, by Warren, Wilbur, Hecht, Mezey, Espaillat, Gwynn. Et Cetera.

It has never been my privilege to teach, nor will it be. But I can spread my luck around, and I look forward to Richard's comments on the best we have to offer.

Timothy
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