Anterooms: New Poems and Translations (Hardback) By (author) Richard Wilbur

Full bibliographic data for Anterooms

Title

Anterooms

Subtitle

New Poems and Translations

Authors and contributors

By (author) Richard Wilbur

Physical properties

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 63
Width: 141 mm
Height: 214 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight: 218 g

Audience

General/trade

Language

English

ISBN

ISBN 13: 9780547358116
ISBN 10: 0547358113

Classifications

Dewey: 811/.52
BISAC category code: POE005010
Dewey: 811.52
Dewey: 811.52
Nielsen BookScan Product Class: T3.1
BIC subject category: DCF

Edition

1

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

Imprint name

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

Publication date

12 November 2010

Publication City/Country

Boston, MA/US

Main description

Poetry lovers and critics will rejoice at the news of this collection from Richard Wilbur, the legendary poet and translator who was called “a hero to a new generation of critics” by the New York Times Book Review, and whose work continues to be masterful, accomplished, whimsical, fresh, and important. A yellow-striped, green measuring worm opens Anterooms, a collection filled with poems that are classic Wilbur, that play with myth and form and examine the human condition through reflections on nature and love. Anterooms also features masterly translations from Mallarmé’s “The Tomb of Edgar Allan Poe,” a previously unpublished Verlaine poem, two poems by Joseph Brodsky, and thirty-seven of Symphosius’s clever Latin riddles. Whether he is considering a snow shovel and domestic life or playfully considering that “Inside homeowner is the word meow,” Wilbur’s new collection is sure to delight everyone from longtime devotees to casual poetry readers. Exploring the interplay between the everyday and the mythic, the sobering and the lighthearted, Anterooms is nothing less than an event in poetic history and a remarkable addition to a master’s oeuvre.

Review quote

"[Wilbur] stood for decades in the front rank of American poets who know how to use traditional forms: his confident rhymes and stanzas are second to none, their poise perhaps unsurpassed since Frost, and like Frost he can combine smooth popular appeal with a startling dark side. . . . This volume's gems measure up to Wilbur's high standards." --"Publishers Weekly " "Richard Wilbur's imagination has long regarded life in the bud--the seedling, the fledgling, the sprout, the egg. Approaching ninety, this American master is ever more elegantly brooding over beginnings, as in the 'clenched bloom' of 'A Pasture Poem' in this new volume. His flowering never ceases to unfold." --Mary Jo Salter "When the Roman poet Horace described what a master poet does, he was describing what the American master poet Richard Wilbur does in his wonderful new book. There's perfection of music and utterance everywhere in these brave, witty, radiant new poems. There's exaltation here. He makes it look like child's play." --David Ferry "In 1947, Richard Wilbur broke into the literary big leagues with his stunning first collection of poems, "The Beautiful Changes"; and as" Anterooms" demonstrates, he is still regularly hitting the ball out of the park sixty-three years later. I can't think of any other American author who has written so wonderfully well, decade after decade. These remarkable new poems feature his characteristic genius for the right word and for metaphors that startle with their freshness and accuracy. And the poems remind us that his singular achievement has resulted not only from his masterful and continually maturing craftsmanship, but also and even more so, from his appreciative attention to the physical universe and his sympathy with those who inhabit it." --Timothy Steele "A new collection by our greatest living poet is cause for wonder and gratitude. Wilbur searches both the natural world and the human heart for hard truths he renders with a matchless gr