A 96 page volume, containing a lengthy interview, with a career sketch, a comprehensive bibliography, and a representative selection of quotations from Wilbur's critics and reviewers. Also included is the title poem of Wilbur's most recent collection, Mayflies.
What the critics said:
Even without the mastery of his poetic voice, Richard Wilbur would be outstanding among his contemporaries for the sheer generosity of his vision. In this conversation Wilbur speaks openly and intimately of his poetry, his translations and his life. We meet an uncomplicated, wholehearted man; intelligent, humorous, reflective, passionate in his affections, his views, and his friendships. Reading this exchange with Peter Dale demonstrates the sense and insight of Theodore Roethke's well-known description of Wilbur as 'Not a graceful mind [...] but a mind of grace, an altogether different and higher thing'.
Ian Tromp, poet, critic and regular contributor to the TLS, Poetry Review, PN Review and Modern Painters
What the critics said:
Even without the mastery of his poetic voice, Richard Wilbur would be outstanding among his contemporaries for the sheer generosity of his vision. In this conversation Wilbur speaks openly and intimately of his poetry, his translations and his life. We meet an uncomplicated, wholehearted man; intelligent, humorous, reflective, passionate in his affections, his views, and his friendships. Reading this exchange with Peter Dale demonstrates the sense and insight of Theodore Roethke's well-known description of Wilbur as 'Not a graceful mind [...] but a mind of grace, an altogether different and higher thing'.
Ian Tromp, poet, critic and regular contributor to the TLS, Poetry Review, PN Review and Modern Painters