USA: Poetry Episode Richard Wilbur and Robert Lowell

Interviews Richard Wilbur and Robert Lowell. Explores their interests in poetic expression and the origins of the ideas in their respective poems. Wilbur reads On the marginal way, Love calls us to the things of this world, and Advise to a prophet. Lowell reads Water, Soft wood, A flaw, Fall, 1961 and The opposite house.

[@rogercarroll2551]

Richard Wilbur read a poem of mine which had been selected for his reading and commentary at a poetry conference many years ago. To have my most highly regarded American poet read my work aloud was beyond an honor.

[@musicstewart9744]

Oh to imagine such a program being produced in 2020.

[@walterwally983]

Robert Lowell, the tradition of poetry. Probably one of the most distinct voice I've ever heard...and I believe greatly underappreciated...not much is ever said of this great voice!

[@fattymcfatso1083]

Well . . not much lately but he won the Pulitzer twice and was actually on the cover of TIME magazine.

[@walterwally983]

@@fattymcfatso1083 I'd love to have that issue of Time🙂

[@fattymcfatso1083]

@@walterwally983 it was from 1967: content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19670602,00.html

[@JeffRebornNow]

Walter, the literary femi-nazis shut him down. He's not a woman or a person of color, so the tenured radicals who control cultural discourse just dismiss him for lesser voices who fit in with their cultural relativist political objectives. His best books are Life Studies and For The Union Dead, which you can buy as one book on Amazon very cheaply.

[@zriter59escritor33]

That unique accent. Part New England with a touch of Southern. That Lowell doubtless acquired from studying with Ransom. I very much recommend Kay Redfield Jamison's book about Lowell. Jamison, like Lowell, is bipolar. She is also very well-read in American poetry. She understands thoroughly the impact of Lowell's illness upon his art.

[@tigerboy245]

I have met Mr. Wilbur before, and one could not ask for a kinder, more magnanimous human being.

[@gregdecker3518]

rest in peace indeed, Richard Wilbur. thank you, magnificent artist.

[@farhangbook1]

Robert Lowell's poem "Pick up the phone Kevin you lazy wanker (An ode to deep sea fishermen)" is my favourite.

[@severito33]

Knowing the men behind their words makes their poetry stronger.

[@jazzstandardman]

Mr. Wilbur was so down to earth. A life full of meaning and beauty.

[@HeuristicalWorker]

WOW. RIP Richard Wilbur!

[@tigerboy245]

I am sorry that he is no longer with us. I had hoped to see him again, shake his hand, and tell him that I am still reading his poetry.

[@rievans57]

"Three girls lie golden" -- love that line.

[@ADAMSIXTIES]

Today is Richard Wilbur's Centenary.

[@BenjEvans]

As a Mainer, I appreciate this especially.

[@gillianwhite7910]

Wilbur speaks those “and uh”s just like Lowell does in his readings of “Skunk Hour” in the early 60s-

[@quagapp]

I like Robert Lowell and know his work well, including his later poems in Life Studies that influenced Plath etc. But I have to say I have not read much by Wilbur. I was impressed and must redress that lack (I have his work in some anthologies, and the other day I saw an introduction or essay by him somewhere).

[@soldtobediers]

Wilbur's presence & mannerisms bring to mind an under current of a heart felt but well disciplined Warren Oates somehow. 14:40 Both Wilbur's & Lowell's base mention of seals; questions if it might have stirred to thought the chorus portion of the song Grey Seal by Bernie Taupin & Elton John. And tell me grey seal How does it feel To be so wise To see through eyes That only see what's real Tell me grey seal Holding every thought & action to that of the mind of the Maker. Prods me into that said hold of the very first essence of His ownership over... 'His Ever Changing Dirt'' Every living thing & it's seed Comes from & returns back into His ever changing dirt Yet: in between those two times Are they not fashioned & nurtured by His Will, His Light & His Life Giving Waters? ~Just another one of those many ones of we Awaiting His Just Return. 11721 Obligements & Greetings Cody Carvel - for such a platform in which to pop off. From that last place resting state of those 3 Blood Baptized Texans... Crockett, Bowie, & Travis.

[@kristinawashington1773]

Sweet job! Thanks. :)

[@cameronhelmuth5709]

Richard Wilbur - Ouch!

[@BNardolilli]

Didn't realize Lowell and Berryman had the same reading voice

[@reaganwiles_art]

Are there really others? I need to meet them.

[@reaganwiles_art]

Blaise Cendrars wrote about Hiroshima. It fell out of his pen in a marvelously discursive rant in the 'Genoa' section of his memoire Planus; the excerpt is in Selected Writings, a New Directions publication. The passage smashed into me when I read it. The reportorial way he draws it almost as a series of bylines into a withering full stop, that calls out the Roosevelt boys as the real culprits behind the whole lousy business: 100,000 people vaporized!

[@warren8731]

2:00

[@ChurlsBeardSmug]

Richard Wilbur was an awful poet--god bless him

[@reginaldmolethrasher437]

Richard Wilbur isn't in Lowell's class.

[@fattymcfatso1083]

minor vs. major poet

[@rogercarroll2551]

It is better to put away the arbitrary classification of poets: a poet is his own class. Why make such a judgment? They are each in a class by themselves, are they not?

[@JeffRebornNow]

@@rogercarroll2551 I agree with you, Roger. Here's a quote from Marlon Brando that touches upon this: "That's part of the sickness in America, that you have to think in terms of who wins, who loses, who's good, who's bad, who's best, who's worst. We always think in those terms, and extreme terms. I don't like to think that way. Everybody has their own value in a different way." How many books of poems have you had published, Roger? I saw one called "The Swimmer and Other Poems."

[@matthewstokes1608]

Who would want to be? I fancy Wilbur was where he wanted to be - though any decent poet seldom is… Leave the rare bird be just as he is - and the ill-informed ornithologists all fawn over the ordinary peacock.