What do you think?
Advice to a Prophet and Other Poems
A collection of poems by Mr. Wilber, former winner of the Pullitzer Prize and National Book Award.
- GenresPoetry
64 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
About the author
Richard Wilbur
259 books76 followersEarly years :
Wilbur was born in New York City and grew up in North Caldwell, New Jersey.He graduated from Montclair High School in 1938, having worked on the school newspaper as a student there. He graduated from Amherst College in 1942 and then served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1945 during World War II. After the Army and graduate school at Harvard University, Wilbur taught at Wesleyan University for two decades and at Smith College for another decade. At Wesleyan, he was instrumental in founding the award-winning poetry series of the University Press.He received two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and, as of 2011, teaches at Amherst College.He is also on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.He married Charlotte Hayes Ward in 1942 after his graduation from Amherst; she was a student at nearby Smith College.
Career :
When only 8 years old, Wilbur published his first poem in John Martin's Magazine. His first book, The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems, appeared in 1947. Since then he has published several volumes of poetry, including New and Collected Poems (Faber, 1989). Wilbur is also a translator, specializing in the 17th century French comedies of Molière and the dramas of Jean Racine. His translation of Tartuffe has become the standard English version of the play, and has been presented on television twice (a 1978 production is available on DVD.)
Continuing the tradition of Robert Frost and W. H. Auden, Wilbur's poetry finds illumination in everyday experiences. Less well-known is Wilbur's foray into lyric writing. He provided lyrics to several songs in Leonard Bernstein's 1956 musical, Candide, including the famous "Glitter and Be Gay" and "Make Our Garden Grow." He has also produced several unpublished works such as "The Wing" and "To Beatrice".
His honors include the 1983 Drama Desk Special Award for his translation of The Misanthrope, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award, both in 1957, the Edna St Vincent Millay award, the Bollingen Prize, and the Chevalier, Ordre National des Palmes Académiques. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959.In 1987 Wilbur became the second poet, after Robert Penn Warren, to be named U.S. Poet Laureate after the position's title was changed from Poetry Consultant. In 1989 he won a second Pulitzer, this one for his New and Collected Poems. On October 14, 1994, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton. In 2006, Wilbur won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. In 2010 he won the National Translation Award for the translation of The Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille.
Wilbur was born in New York City and grew up in North Caldwell, New Jersey.He graduated from Montclair High School in 1938, having worked on the school newspaper as a student there. He graduated from Amherst College in 1942 and then served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1945 during World War II. After the Army and graduate school at Harvard University, Wilbur taught at Wesleyan University for two decades and at Smith College for another decade. At Wesleyan, he was instrumental in founding the award-winning poetry series of the University Press.He received two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and, as of 2011, teaches at Amherst College.He is also on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.He married Charlotte Hayes Ward in 1942 after his graduation from Amherst; she was a student at nearby Smith College.
Career :
When only 8 years old, Wilbur published his first poem in John Martin's Magazine. His first book, The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems, appeared in 1947. Since then he has published several volumes of poetry, including New and Collected Poems (Faber, 1989). Wilbur is also a translator, specializing in the 17th century French comedies of Molière and the dramas of Jean Racine. His translation of Tartuffe has become the standard English version of the play, and has been presented on television twice (a 1978 production is available on DVD.)
Continuing the tradition of Robert Frost and W. H. Auden, Wilbur's poetry finds illumination in everyday experiences. Less well-known is Wilbur's foray into lyric writing. He provided lyrics to several songs in Leonard Bernstein's 1956 musical, Candide, including the famous "Glitter and Be Gay" and "Make Our Garden Grow." He has also produced several unpublished works such as "The Wing" and "To Beatrice".
His honors include the 1983 Drama Desk Special Award for his translation of The Misanthrope, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award, both in 1957, the Edna St Vincent Millay award, the Bollingen Prize, and the Chevalier, Ordre National des Palmes Académiques. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959.In 1987 Wilbur became the second poet, after Robert Penn Warren, to be named U.S. Poet Laureate after the position's title was changed from Poetry Consultant. In 1989 he won a second Pulitzer, this one for his New and Collected Poems. On October 14, 1994, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton. In 2006, Wilbur won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. In 2010 he won the National Translation Award for the translation of The Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 25, 2021
As usual with Richard Wilbur, very polished poems written elegantly. Although he was the strongest of poets from his first book to his last book, these poems were written in mid career when he may have been at his poetic heights.
Both Nook and Kindle should consider releasing his poems written from 1970 to 2010. There are no e books available for Wilbur during this period.
Both Nook and Kindle should consider releasing his poems written from 1970 to 2010. There are no e books available for Wilbur during this period.
July 6, 2026
All perfect poems. My homage will be to record the whole book and listen to it over and over again.
January 5, 2008
I no longer remember how I got to Mr. Wilbur, but his poems are a very enjoyable mix, mostly featuring some form of meter and often with some type of ancient theme. His lines are often clever without veering into humourous verse (not that I'd have a problem with that, but wanted to make a distinction). He was quite popular in his day, winning both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. I found this to be an enjoyable read, liking almost all of the poems inside.
Take "A Summer Morning" for instance:
"Her young emplyers, having got in late
From seeing friends in town
And scraped the right front fender on the gate,
Will not, the cook expects, be coming down.
She makes a quiet breakfast for herself.
The coffee-pot is bright,
The jelly where it should be on the shelf.
She breaks an egg into the morning light,
Then, with the bread-knife lifted, stands and hears
The sweet efficient sounds
Of thrush and catbird, and the snip of shears
Where, in the terraced backward of the grounds,
A gardener works before the heat of day.
He straightens for a view
Of the big house ascending stony-gray
Out of his beds mosaic with the dew.
His young employers having got in late,
He and the cook alone
Receive the morning on their old estate
Possessing what the owners can but own."
It's that last line that really gets me, and is typical of the poems here. So is the rhyming--if you are the type for whom free verse is your master and prose poetry your mistress, you might as well give this a pass, because you will be deeply disappointed. Wilbur often sets things in an ironic pose, such as a poem where a man comes home, and upon learning his wife is ill, keeps asking about someone else entirely. The end of the poem sums up Wilbur's take on life, it seems: "Both are much improved, in short./I'll go and tell Madame that you've expressed/keen sympathy and anxious interest."
Here is another example of Wilbur's tone, from the start of "Advice to a Prophet":
"When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God's name to have self-pity,
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange."
The poems range all over in terms of topics, even covering vampires at one point, and even that subject gets an eye of a different sort, discussing how hard it is to be one who seeks the blood of others: "Nevertheless, their pain is real,/And requires our pity."
I really like Wilbur's style, with its inability to take poetry too seriously and finding a way to look at familiar themes from a different perspective. I admit the rhyming is a bit hard at first to follow for a modern reader's eyes, but it, too, adds to the effect--Wilbur uses an older style to, if anything, make the irony stronger. This is definitely a poet worth trying out, and I look forward to reading more of his work. (Library, 12/07)
Trebby's Take: Recommended!
Take "A Summer Morning" for instance:
"Her young emplyers, having got in late
From seeing friends in town
And scraped the right front fender on the gate,
Will not, the cook expects, be coming down.
She makes a quiet breakfast for herself.
The coffee-pot is bright,
The jelly where it should be on the shelf.
She breaks an egg into the morning light,
Then, with the bread-knife lifted, stands and hears
The sweet efficient sounds
Of thrush and catbird, and the snip of shears
Where, in the terraced backward of the grounds,
A gardener works before the heat of day.
He straightens for a view
Of the big house ascending stony-gray
Out of his beds mosaic with the dew.
His young employers having got in late,
He and the cook alone
Receive the morning on their old estate
Possessing what the owners can but own."
It's that last line that really gets me, and is typical of the poems here. So is the rhyming--if you are the type for whom free verse is your master and prose poetry your mistress, you might as well give this a pass, because you will be deeply disappointed. Wilbur often sets things in an ironic pose, such as a poem where a man comes home, and upon learning his wife is ill, keeps asking about someone else entirely. The end of the poem sums up Wilbur's take on life, it seems: "Both are much improved, in short./I'll go and tell Madame that you've expressed/keen sympathy and anxious interest."
Here is another example of Wilbur's tone, from the start of "Advice to a Prophet":
"When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God's name to have self-pity,
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange."
The poems range all over in terms of topics, even covering vampires at one point, and even that subject gets an eye of a different sort, discussing how hard it is to be one who seeks the blood of others: "Nevertheless, their pain is real,/And requires our pity."
I really like Wilbur's style, with its inability to take poetry too seriously and finding a way to look at familiar themes from a different perspective. I admit the rhyming is a bit hard at first to follow for a modern reader's eyes, but it, too, adds to the effect--Wilbur uses an older style to, if anything, make the irony stronger. This is definitely a poet worth trying out, and I look forward to reading more of his work. (Library, 12/07)
Trebby's Take: Recommended!
August 5, 2018
Still:
2018: Favorite poems from this collection: Two Voices in a Meadow, Ballade for the Duke of Orleans, Someone Talking to Himself.
2018: Favorite poems from this collection: Two Voices in a Meadow, Ballade for the Duke of Orleans, Someone Talking to Himself.
July 19, 2026
If the collection were a bit longer while maintaining its quality, I'd give it 4 stars; as it is, 35 pages of original poems goes by quick! One who likes Things of This World will be just as happy here. The title poem is a very good abstract/conceptual piece, and Junk is a very nice symbolic piece. My favorites might be two late nature poems: To Ishtar and Fall in Corrales. New to this volume are several very Blakean pieces ("two voices in a meadow," "the Aspen and the stream," etc.), which are fine but of course a bit heavy handed.
November 3, 2015
An enjoyable read with allusions to Biblical, Classical, and Renaissance stories. The poems are quite formal for today. There are many with meter and rhyme.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews