The Poems of Richard WilburThe New and Collected Poems of Richard Wilbur is full of poems that cover a wide multitude of topics. The four poems covered in this assignment represent this variety, with themes such as love, juggling, grace, and music. Wilbur's poems take experiences and ideas (even those of a juggler) and, through his mastery of the English language, force the reader to rethink their preconceptions. His poems allow for many different interpretations, and this article will take a different angle on some of his works. “Love calls us to the things of this world” creates, in the first stanza, the feeling that something otherworldly is about to happen. in the photo. “The morning air is flooded with angels” brings into play the image (or concept) of heaven, which Wilbur refers to later in the poem. In the 2nd stanza, once again the notion of not-of-this-world is brought into play with the mention of the halcyon, which is a mythical bird. A literary device that Wilbur seems to rely heavily on in this poem is the use of oxymorons, contradictory terms together. The angels rise together in “calm swells.” When I think of swells, calm is not necessarily the word that comes to mind. He also states that angels "fly in place...move/and remain like living water." Flying involves movement, so "flying in place" is not a commonly heard phrase. Later in the poem he uses the term bitter love, and while I understand that this concept does in fact exist, they are still two somewhat contradictory words. In the last stanza, he mentions the “heavier nuns” who strive to keep their “difficult balance.” It reminded me of this concept of tightrope walking that we discussed in class. This work seems to use the idea of ​​balance (indirectly) in many aspects. Using the contradictory terms I discussed earlier could be seen as a way of balancing. This poem as a whole was very well composed, with phrases that caught your attention, and my favorite phrase was "The soul shrinks/Of all that it is about to remember." “Juggler” was probably the most elegant of the poems attributed to him. . The other two discussed the concepts of love and grace, but "Juggler" made juggling a very beautiful act. I should point out that the fact that I am able to juggle probably had some influence on my understanding of this poem..