Richard Wilbur (1921–2017), one of the foremost poets of his generation, succeeded Robert Penn Warren in 1987 as the poet laureate of the United States. Things of This World received the National Book Award as well as the Pulitzer Prize, which was again awarded to him for New and Collected Poems. A poet of praise, not complaint, Wilbur illuminated everyday experience. He wrote many works for children, and he was also a gifted and prolific translator of French drama, notably, Molière’s Tartuffe. His legacy as one of the most lauded poets of the twentieth century endures.
Photograph by Stathis Orphanos.
WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:
- Year’s End, poetry, in Poems of the Week: 2018–2019
- Anterooms: New Poems and Translations, a review or criticism, in Spring 2011