Collected Poems 1943-2004: Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Winner―Sixty Years of American Verse

Collected Poems 1943-2004: Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Winner―Sixty Years of American Verse

One of the most honored poets of 20th-century American verse, Richard Wilbur won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry. With a distinguished career spanning more than sixty years, Richard Wilbur stands as one of America's preeminent men of letters. Collected Poems 1943–2004 is the comprehensive collection of Wilbur's astonishing, timeless work. It will serve as the most referenced trove of this beloved poet's best verses for many years to come. In Trackless Woods In trackless woods, it puzzled me to find Four great rock maples seemingly aligned, As if they had been set out in a row Before some house a century ago, To edge the property and lend some shade. I looked to see if ancient wheels had made Old ruts to which the trees ran parallel, But there were none, so far as I could tell– There'd been no roadway. Nor could I find the square Depression of a cellar anywhere, And so I tramped on further, to survey Amazing patterns in a hornbeam spray Or spirals in a pine cone, under trees Not subject to our stiff geometries. " Collected Poems 1943-2004 is the indispensable Wilbur. The emergence of a poet like Wilbur as a hero to a new generation of critics is cause for hope: that readers, not gatekeepers, might rediscover poems written in the spirit of generosity and care, and disciplined by the idea of an uncaptive audience." - New York Times Book Review "The work in these five hundred or so pages has been one of the saving graces of poetry in our time, as beautiful and moving as it is artful and accomplished. This collected edition will see a reader through quiet evenings and noisy Metro commutes, indeed through one's whole life." - The Washington Post Book World “ Collected Poems has moving and ambiguous power.” - The New Yorker OVER THE COURSE of his distinguished sixty-year career, Richard Wilbur has written seventeen collections of poetry, five children s books, and numerous works of prose and translations. This volume presents a comprehensive collection of Wilbur s work, including many of his most recent poems. " OVER THE COURSE of his distinguished sixty-year career, Richard Wilbur has written seventeen collections of poetry, five children’s books, and numerous works of prose and translations. This volume presents a comprehensive collection of Wilbur’s work, including many of his most recent poems. RICHARD WILBUR, one of America’s most beloved poets, has served as poet laureate of the United States. He has received the National Book Award, two Pulitzer Prizes, the National Arts Club medal of honor for literature, and a number of translation prizes, including two Bollingen Prizes and two awards from PEN. Collected Poems 1943-2004 By Richard Wilbur Harvest Books Copyright © 2006 Richard Wilbur All right reserved. ISBN: 9780156030793 Chapter One The Reader She is going back, these days, to the great stories That charmed her younger mind. A shaded light Shines on the nape half-shadowed by her curls, And a page turns now with a scuffing sound. Onward they come again, the orphans reaching For a first handhold in a stony world, The young provincials who at last look down On the city's maze, and will descend into it, The serious girl, once more, who would live nobly, The sly one who aspires to marry so, The young man bent on glory, and that other Who seeks a burden. Knowing as she does What will become of them in bloody field Or Tuscan garden, it may be that at times She sees their first and final selves at once, As a god might to whom all time is now. Or, having lived so much herself, perhaps She meets them this time with a wiser eye, Noting that Julien's calculating head Is from the first too severed from his heart. But the true wonder of it is that she, For all that she may know of consequences, Still turns enchanted to the next bright page Like some Natasha in the ballroom door- Caught in the flow of things wherever bound, The blind delight of being, ready still To enter life on life and see them through. Sir David Brewster's Toy In this tube you see At the far end a batch of Colored-glass debris- Which, however, grows Upon reflection to an Intricate pied rose, Flushed with sun, that might, Set in some cathedral's wall, Paraphrase the light. Now, at the least shake, The many colors jumble And abruptly make The rose rearrange, Adding to form and splendor The release of change. Rattle it afresh And see its coruscating Flinders quickly mesh, Fashioning once more A fine sixfold gaudiness Never seen before. Many prophets claim That Heaven's joys, though endless, Are not twice the same; This kaleidoscope Can, in that connection, give Exercise in hope. Security Lights, Key West Mere minutes from Duval Street's goings-on, The midnight houses of this quiet block, With their long-lidded shutters, are withdrawn In sleep past bush and picket, bolt and lock, Yet each fagade is raked by the strange glare Of halogen, in which fan