Long love and constant spirits: an interview with Richard and Charlee Wilbur - Interview

Literary Review, Summer, 2002 by Jeffrey S. Cramer

RW: That is part of it, isn't it? That is part of marriage. I don't see how some marriages get along without that inclination to fun. People like Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, I don't see how they stuck it out ... I try to keep my life simple as Charlee, too, wants our lives to be, and so make possible the kind of quiet in which mental and fruitful emotional things can happen ... Charlee's created a whole world in which I live ... I've been inside all of this for fifty-seven years, is it, or something like that, and I know that it's given me a serenity I would not otherwise have had, and a gusto as well ... Being married is a continual finding out and, if there is someone you are very drawn to, almost everything you find out is delightful.

Jeffrey S. Cramer's work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Kestrel, New Letters, Meridian, and elsewhere. His book Robert Frost Among His Poems was published in 1996. His current work-in-progress, Private Partners, Public Lives: Interviews with Writers and Their Spouses, will include, along with this issue's Richard and Charlee Wilbur interview, interviews with Maxine and Victor Kumin, Marge Piercy and Ira Wood, and Donald Hall.