A Black Birch in Winter
Illustrations by Miki LoweNot everyone appreciated Richard Wilbur. The second poet laureate of the United States, he was the recipient of multiple Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award. Still, plenty of readers thought he was … a little meh. One New York Times reviewer said that reading Wilbur’s collection The Mind-Reader was like conversing with “an old friend whose talk is genial but familiar—and occasionally dull.