Richard Wilbur (born 1921) was a distinguished translator and the most accomplished formalist poet of his generation. In 1987 he became poet laureate of the United States.

The son of portrait artist Lawrence Lazear, Richard Wilbur took the surname of his mother, Helen Ruth Wilbur. He was born in 1921 in Manhattan, New York, but two years later his family moved to North Caldwell, New Jersey, at the time a rural village, where he spent his boyhood. Following graduation from Amherst College in 1942, he served with the U.S. Army in Europe, where he witnessed the World War II horrors of Anzio, Cassino, and the Siegfried Line. He later said that these experiences led him to be a poet.

Prolific Poet

For awhile he toyed with the idea of becoming a political cartoonist, but he soon turned to writing poetry full-time. Wilbur's first book, The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems, was...