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Adios, Richard Wilbur
I’m not sure what kind of knuckle-dragger one would have to be not to enjoy Richard Wilbur’s polished verse, whether or not one thinks its virtues amount to “a little too regular a beauty” [Randall Jarrell, quoted in today’s Guardian obituary]. I too prefer the rough magic of Lowell, Berryman, and Plath—but, as Robert Creeley famously wrote, “Love is dead in us / if we forget / the virtues of an amulet / and quick surprise.” These are the chief virtues of Wilbur’s poetry.Read More