Richard Wilbur The Writer Essay

The poem “ The Writer” by Richard Wilbur reveals in full view the process that every writer faces. “The Writer” is about a father who is watching his daughter write a story. As the father is watching his daughter, he talks about the struggles of being a writer and wishes her luck in her journey. Through his writing Wilbur trying to show that writing a piece is hard. Writes faces many challenges and obstacles while writing. To illustrate his message, Wilbur uses words that represent a boat and even compares the daughter’s struggle to a bird. The title itself is, even more, a giveaway of what the poem is about. Hence why the theme of ¨the writer¨ is, writers must go through a rough journey in which they must overcome hurdles to get their ideas
Wilbur uses words like a prow, gunwale, and cargo. These words represent how out in the ocean a ship faces endless troubles as it navigates its way through the vast waters. The weather pattern could change, water could get inside, the engine could malfunction yet the ship still has to overcome all these struggles and get to where it’s going. Likewise to the process writers go through. A writer passes through a long, stressful and exhausting decision process where they write multiple drafts to get to their final writing piece. Wilbur captures this in the poem when he says, “ the whole house seems to be thinking,/ and then she is at it again with a bunched clamor /of strokes and again is silent”( Wilbur). The daughter is thinking, writing away and trying to create a final draft. Also, the first sentence of the poem says, “ in her room at the prow of the house¨ ( Wilbur). The prow is the front of a boat, and this could be implying that she is the captain of her story. She must guide her work and bring it out of any obstacles she faces while writing. Similarly to how a captain on a boat directs the ship and leads it out of any mishaps. In brief, the author uses ¨boatness¨ words to inform the reader that writers go through a tough journey while