Richard Wilbur
. . . died last night at 10.45. He was 96.
The Beautiful Changes****** |
Richard Wilbur is Dead
i heard though Rhina Espaillat that died peacefully last night, with his family present.
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A great man and poet. It was a privilege to have met him at West Chester. He was a wizard with words.
Susan |
Such sad, sad,news. He was such a great poet, and, like Susan, I consider it a great honor to have met him at West Chester on the occasion of his 90th birthday. I also traveled to Newburyport to hear him read at the 2007 Literary Festival, and as he signed my copy of his Collected, being the gentleman he was, struck up a conversation with me about some Chandlers he knew down in Maryland. I treasure the letter and two postcards he sent me over the past decade, and am happy I was able to send him a final letter a few weeks ago reiterating my admiration for his work and for his generosity of spirit for having encouraged me way back in 2003.
Psalm Give thanks for all things On the plucked lute, and likewise The harp of ten strings. Have the lifted horn Greatly blare, and pronounce it Good to have been born. Lend the breath of life To the stops of the sweet flute Or capering fife, And tell the deep drum To make, at the right juncture, Pandemonium. Then, in grave relief, Praise too our sorrows on the Cello of shared grief. -- Richard Wilbur (Anterooms) |
A master craftsman. I am sorry he is gone.
Reading his Andromache in class tomorrow: I shall tell the class. |
Looks like it’s time to pick up the Wilbur collected from the local used bookstore. I’ve been eyeing it for a while.
It may actually have been the first poetry book I ever owned, as a kid, but no idea where that copy went. |
This is very sad news, particularly for those who knew him, of course, but really for everyone. With no offense meant to those who are still alive, I sincerely doubt there's a finer poet living.
Ed Hamlen Brook By Richard Wilbur xxAt the alder-darkened brook xWhere the stream slows to a lucid jet I lean to the water, dinting its top with sweat, xAnd see, before I can drink, xxA startled inchling trout xOf spotted near-transparency, Trawling a shadow solider than he. xHe swerves now, darting out xxTo where, in a flicked slew xOf sparks and glittering silt, he weaves Through stream-bed rocks, disturbing foundered leaves, xAnd butts them out of view xxBeneath a sliding glass xCrazed by the skimming of a brace Of burnished dragon-flies across its face, xIn which the cloudlets pass xxAnd a white precipice xOf mirrored birch-trees plunges down Toward where the azures of the zenith drown. xHow shall I drink all this? xxJoy's trick is to supply xDry lips with what can cool and slake, Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache xNothing can satisfy. |
A sad day indeed. Just yesterday, I gave my standard answer to the question of America's greatest living poet--Richard Wilbur--not knowing it would be the last time I could say it. The little one below may be my favorite of Wilbur's poems; I find it beautifully, immeasurably sad. I hope those who mourn Wilbur the man as well as the poet--his friends here and elsewhere, I mean--can be glad amidst their sadness that his life was so long and (from what I've heard) so well-lived.
To The Etruscan Poets Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young Took with your mothers' milk the mother tongue, In which pure matrix, joining world and mind, You strove to leave some line of verse behind Like a fresh track across a field of snow, Not reckoning that all could melt and go. |
Glorious energy, again.
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I can do no better than repeat Susan Mclean's response.
Thank you, Ed, for the "Hamlen Brook." Odd, but I unreasonably have felt that I had a nonexistent "special relationship" with Wilbur. Like an unworthy teenage fan swoon. Like he was more trustworthy than many. Don't want that to fade. |
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