Thursday, March 01, 2012

`All Things Are Connected'

On the occasion of Richard Wilbur’s ninety-first birthday, let’s return to his celebrative essay from 1969, “Poetry and Happiness”:

“Now, all I wanted to say was that the poet hankers to write in and for a culture, countering its centrifugal development by continually fabricating a common and inclusive language in which all things are connected.”

Nige remembers Wilbur, as I did last year.

[Cynthia Haven joins the celebration here and here.]

4 comments:

  1. rebagg@earthlink.net11:00 AM

    Hello Patrick, my name is Bob Bagg and I'm writing RPW's biography. Tonight, though our towns are under a foot of continuing snow, we're giving him a birthday party. I'll convey, if you don't mind, your regards. "Poetry and Happiness" is a wonder, as are Wilbur's other highly nourshing literary essays. They have been unjustly overlooked. I'll try to remedy that in my book.

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  2. Anonymous11:57 AM

    My dearly beloved and I recently attended a delightful performance of Moliere's play, Tartuffe, wonderfully translated into English by Richard Wilbur.

    TJG

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  3. Tim Murphy5:04 AM

    Wished him happy birthday yesterday. He sounded great!

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  4. I celebrated with a few videos at the Book Haven – here

    http://bit.ly/zbMruF

    and here

    http://bit.ly/wfpEnv

    ReplyDelete