Richard Wilbur

And interview with Richard Wilbur. If you love poetry, you may want to read this. It was a bit of a surprise (a pleasant one) to see that he's still publishing new work.

I mentioned James Wright yesterday, and called him a great American poet. For me, the great ones are those who have written maybe a half-dozen stunningly beautiful poems. Richard Wilbur long ago surpassed that number, and may be the very finest of his generation or any that America has produced. That's my opinion, anyway. He is a very bookish and literary kind of poet at times, and really not at his best in those moments (methinks), but at his best, and he is often at his best, his poems are earthy and humble, daringly simple and yet richly evocative, and reach--as all great poems must, in my opinion--toward the numinous. This recent poem is a fine example of what I mean, as is this, and this.