Richard Wilbur, Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Winner, Dies at 96

I always thought he deserved the Nobel Prize. Feast on this masterpiece: The Death of a Toad. He addresses the sad clash and encroachment of suburban “civilization” with the innocence of nature. A toad the power mower caught, Chewed and clipped of a leg, with a hobbling hop has got To the garden verge, and sanctuaried him Under the cineraria leaves, in the shade Of the ashen heartshaped leaves, in a dim, Low, and a final glade. The rare original heartsblood goes, Spends on the earthen hide, in the folds and wizenings, flows In the gutters of the banked and staring eyes. He lies As still as if he would return to stone, And soundlessly attending, dies Toward some deep monotone. Toward misted and ebullient seas And cooling shores, toward lost Amphibia’s emperies. Day dwindles, drowning, and at length is gone In the wide and antique eyes, which still appear To watch, across the castrate lawn, The haggard daylight steer.

Another gem:Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a God-forsaken stare As outcast Adam gave to paradise. The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, Having no wish to go inside and die. Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry. Though frozen water is his element, He melts enough to drop from one soft eye A trickle of the purest rain, a tear For the child at the bright pane surrounded by Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear. Richard Wilbur

Thank you for these word and for so many more... "The leaves, though little time they have to live, Were never so unfallen as today, And seem to yield us through a rustled sieve The very light from which time fell away." October Maples, Portland

Folks, we're all gonna get old. What beauty he wove in his prime, which will speak more persuasively to some than others, as all poetry does. I'm grieved, grateful, and yep, aging. The beautiful changes.

He was (and will remain) one of the best poets this country has produced. His _Collected Poems 1943-2004_ is an embarrassment of riches, and _Anterooms_, his one volume after the _Collected_, makes an essential postscript to a long and deservedly celebrated career.

Nice of you to quote Jack Butler but fans of his work know him not just as a onetime "resident of Okolona, Ark." but as a fine poet in his own right.

RIP. Two of my favorites: "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" and "The Writer." No other poet merges the mundane and sacred so finely. These are the last lines of each: Yet, as the sun acknowledges With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors, The soul descends once more in bitter love To accept the waking body, saying now In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises, “Bring them down from their ruddy gallows; Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves; Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone, And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating Of dark habits, keeping their difficult balance.” ----- It is always a matter, my darling, Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish What I wished you before, but harder.

So many wonderful poems. Below, "A Wedding Toast" - St. John tells how, at Cana's wedding-feast, The water-pots poured wine in such amount That by his sober count There were a hundred gallons at the least. It made no earthly sense, unless to show How whatsoever love elects to bless Brims to a sweet excess That can without depletion overflow. Which is to say that what love sees is true; That the world's fullness is not made but found. Life hungers to abound And pour its plenty out for such as you. Now if your loves will lend an ear to mine, I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter. May you not lack for water, And may that water smack of Cana's wine.

Didn't JFK name Robert Frost the nation's poet lauriette in 1960 or 1961?

Mr. Wilbur's voice will live on as an oasis of calm and thoughtfulness (and humor) in a world often engulfed by the bombastic and fleeting. I used his poem "Wedding Toast" for my own son's wedding and put to seasonal use his poem, "A Christmas Hymn." I bask in his words and imagery and take comfort knowing that future generations will have the opportunity to likewise encounter this great American poet.

My friend and I visited the Wilbur in 2011. Big-time fans, we had written him a letter asking for an hour of his time and in short order we received a typed letter saying, “Come along.” So we flew from Illinois, found his home in Cummington and knocked on the door. He welcomed us with a smile, showed us around his studio and then served us iced-tea (it was July) in the sitting room. We asked him to read some of our favorites, including “The Barred Owl” and “A Christmas Hymn” which Episcopalians know also as hymn 104. Then I asked him to read my favorite, “The Ride,” in which we enter the dream of a late night, bareback gallop through blinding snow. The dreamer wakes and, filled with longing for the horse now vanished, asks: 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? Wilbur was a gracious host. As we left, he autographed our books of his poems and gave us advance copies, also signed, of “Sugar Maples, January” which was later published in The New Yorker. Framed, it hangs now in my home, a reminder of the mid-summer tea my friend and I shared with the Poet Laureate. Bless you, Richard Wilbur. Rest in peace.

Richard Wilbur represents what is rare in contemporary poetry. He had the ability to put "the best words in the best order," and his poetry will live on because it combines music and meaning. His translation of "A Prayer to Go to Paradise with the Donkeys" by Francis Jammes is one of my favorite poems of all time.

Remembering my Dad reading Wilbur's "The Writer" to me because it made him think of me, his daughter who loved to write. Still makes me weep: In her room at the prow of the house Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden, My daughter is writing a story. I pause in the stairwell, hearing From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys Like a chain hauled over a gunwale. Young as she is, the stuff Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy: I wish her a lucky passage. But now it is she who pauses, As if to reject my thought and its easy figure. A stillness greatens, in which The whole house seems to be thinking, And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor Of strokes, and again is silent. I remember the dazed starling Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago; How we stole in, lifted a sash And retreated, not to affright it; And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door, We watched the sleek, wild, dark And iridescent creature Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove To the hard floor, or the desk-top, And wait then, humped and bloody, For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits Rose when, suddenly sure, It lifted off from a chair-back, Beating a smooth course for the right window And clearing the sill of the world. It is always a matter, my darling, Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish What I wished you before, but harder.

Out of the snowdrift Which covered it, this pillared Sundial starts to lift, Able now at last To let its frozen hours Melt into the past In bright, ticking drops. Time so often hastens by, Time so often stops— Still, it strains belief How an instant can dilate, Or long years be brief. Dreams, which interweave All our times and tenses, are What we can believe: Dark they are, yet plain, Coming to us now as if Through a cobwebbed pane Where, before our eyes, All the living and the dead Meet without surprise. Wilbur, Richard. Anterooms: New Poems and Translations (Kindle Locations 79-86). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

As a young Rhetoric major at UC Berkeley in the late 70's/early 80's, I was first introduced to Richard Wilbur. His poetry resonated with me because of the melodious way he could paint a picture of an idea or feeling, as well as of an actual scene. His collections of poems have remained on my bookshelf through my life since then, and "The Juggler" remains etched in my mind. It is the piece I most love to share with others to illustrate his clever ability to play with defnitions.

He made beautiful translations of French plays. Incredible ability to rhyme English to the French meaning AND in pentameter. Read them in college and remember being astounded.

Mr. Wilbur's Moliere translations are magnificent. Once one starts reading those plays, it's hard to stop. Thank you for these, in particular. RIP

The House Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes For a last look at that white house she knew In sleep alone, and held no title to, And had not entered yet, for all her sighs. What did she tell me of that house of hers? White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door; A widow's walk above the bouldered shore; Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs. Is she now there, wherever there may be? Only a foolish man would hope to find That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind. Night after night, my love, I put to sea. RIP Richard Wilbur

But ceremony never did conceal, Save to the silly eye, which all allows, How much we are the woods we wander in. —Richard Wilbur, “Ceremony” The critics of Wilbur were unfair....

Wilbur's wonderful "On Having Mis-identified a Wild Flower": A thrush, because I'd been wrong, Burst rightly into song In a world not vague, not lonely, Not governed by me only.

I know it seems almost intellectually naive in this awful day and age, but to find Jimmy Kimmel at the very top of today's "front page", and Richard Wilbur at almost the bottom, pretty much says all that needs to be said about where we are as a country. There should be a State Funeral, the releasing of doves, people lining the streets, and eulogies to the ineffable beauty this man created and has left to us in this world. But by all means, let's get back to the eternally important questions of life, like Harvey Weinstein.

His Moliere translations are invaluable.

We're neither pure nor wise nor good; We'll do the best we know; We'll build our house, and chop our wood, And make our garden grow. And make our garden grow.

I had the great honor and pleasure to take a course from Richard Wilbur during my first year at Wesleyan. Myself a college professor, I had many fine and eminent teachers during my student career, but Wilbur was surely the most genuinely delightful of them all. He was exactly what you see in his poetry and translations: cheerfully good natured, suffused with serene delight in the good things of this world, whimsical and droll, warm and gentle, and a brilliantly consummate wordsmith. We read Paradise Lost during the course, and it was like perusing Hell with an astutely observant good angel as our guide. Rest in peace, good sir! You sharpened our sensibilities and brought light and joy to the world for nearly a century. All of us fortunate enough to cross paths with you have memories to cherish and will forever be in your debt.

Richard Wilbur graced our language and sharpened our sight, he gave us back our nature in silken music. In person he was courtly and modest and his love for his wife and hers for him was an example of wise and tolerant depth. He will be missed terribly and we are lucky to have his voice live on in us.

So many exquisite lines: “I dreamt the past was never past redeeming: But whether this was false or honest dreaming I beg death’s pardon now. And mourn the dead.”

Mr. Wilbur, your work speaks to me like no other. Rest in Peace.

Everness Versions: #1#2 One thing does not exist: Oblivion. God saves the metal and he saves the dross, And his prophetic memory guards from loss The moons to come, and those of evenings gone. Everything is: the shadows in the glass Which, in between the day’s two twilights, you Have scattered by the thousands, or shall strew Henceforward in the mirrors that you pass. And everything is part of that diverse Crystalline memory, the universe; Whoever through its endless mazes wanders Hears door on door click shut behind his stride, And only from the sunset’s farther side Shall view at last the Archetypes and the Splendors. (1964) His translations are superb. Feeling forever grateful for his work.

Certainly he will be missed. I always liked this one, especially the last stanza: Piazza di Spagna, Early Morning I can’t forget How she stood at the top of that long marble stair Amazed, and then with a sleepy pirouette Went dancing slowly down to the fountain-quieted square; Nothing upon her face But some impersonal loneliness,- not then a girl But as it were a reverie of the place, A called-for falling glide and whirl; As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip Is drawn to the falls of a pool and, circling a moment above it, Rides on over the lip- Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it.

I remember Richard Wilbur as a generous neighbor. He lived in Worthington, Mass for decades, and came to read when our Williamsburg Meekins Library reopened following expansion. I was always jealous of his round writing tower at just the right distance from his home. His words and himself will be be missed.

Rest in peace, sir. You brought beauty and order to a world that sorely needed it.

As an aging English major, I am delighted that Mr. Wilbur's death received the recognition it deserves. Thank you for the information about his life, and his lack of "conspicuous self-dramatization"--a virtue that is much appreciated. Farewell to man of beautiful and often kind words.

From Mr. Wilbur's "Blackberries for Amelia" As the far stars, of which we now are told That ever faster do they bolt away, And that a night may come in which, some say, We shall have only blackness to behold. I have no time for any change so great, But I shall see the August weather spur Berries to ripen where the flowers were— Dark berries, savage-sweet and worth the wait—

Richard Wilbur was simply the best: Epistemology I. Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones: But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones. II. We milk the cow of the world, and as we do We whisper in her ear, ‘You are not true.’