Richard Wilbur centenary
 

R.W. would have turned 100 today, and since he used to visit this site now and then and has been a key mentor for some of its poets, I thought I'd start a thread.

My tribute is this lyric, about his beloved wife, Charlee, composed not long after her death. It's the first poem in his last collection, Anterooms.

Apparently there was once a third stanza, which Wilbur (rightly) deleted in the Collected.

Worlds

For Alexander there was no Far East,
Because he thought the Asian continent
Ended with India. Free Cathay at least
Did not contribute to his discontent.

But Newton, who had grasped all space, was more
Serene. To him it seemed that he’d but played
With a few shells and pebbles on the shore
Of that profundity he had not made.

I like the contrast of far-traveling Alexander erroneously believing the world smaller than it is and little-traveled Newton correctly supposing its enormity.

When I was a young journalist back in the ’70s, I had the opportunity to interview Wilbur. By that time, I had seen him read once, and knew enough of his work to be aware that he was one of the great American poets, so I was surprised to hear him express a kind of underdog admiration for novelists. Somerset Maugham had said, “The crown of literature is poetry. . . . The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.” In contrast, Wilbur told me, “You can write lyric poetry and be quite immature socially, not know how the world works. But you have to be mature to write fiction that’s worth anybody’s time.” Considering how much I envy his work, it comforts me to know that he did his own share of “Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope.”

His career included something like 20 years on the faculty at Wesleyan and 10 as writer in residence at Smith. He had a lot to say when I asked him about his dual career as poet and academic. Were those two separate things, or parts of some whole? “The idea of the uneducated poet, standing aside from the world of learning and culture is not a very sound one,” he said. “Not much basis in fact. Frost was really a scholar, although he posed as a rough farmer. . . . The Beats posed as wild men, but they all – Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder – were college educated folk.”

On February 20 I participated in a Zoom reading in honor or Richard Wilbur's 100th birthday.



As soon as the recording becomes available, I'll post the link here.

I have a soft spot for "The Writer". Nominally a poem about writing, but really about the transitional nature of parenthood. Wilbur lets the poem finds its own form, much as the narrator lets the daughter find her own way.

A few years ago, a chimney sweep who was setting up in front of our fireplace spotted a Wilbur volume on a table and asked excitedly, "Do you know the one about the owl?" One of our favorite poetry-in-everyday-life moments. Like "The Writer", "A Barred Owl" is a poem about the love and anxiety of parenthood.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...2/a-barred-owl

I've always loved this poem of his.


The Ride

The horse beneath me seemed
To know what course to steer
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,

Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.

It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing in my view
But the pillar of his mane,

I rode with magic ease
At a quick, unstumbling trot
Through shattering vacancies
On into what was not,

Till the weave of the storm grew thin,
With a threading of cedar-smoke,
And the ice-blind pane of an inn
Shimmered, and I awoke.

How shall I now get back
To the inn-yard where he stands,
Burdened with every lack,
And waken the stable-hands

To give him, before I think
That there was no horse at all,
Some hay, some water to drink,
A blanket and a stall?


Nemo