Born in 1921 in New York City, Richard Wilbur won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for Things of This World: Poems and his second in 1989 for New and Collected Poems. He is known primarily as a writer of poetry; he has also written a number of critical essays, translations of French poetry and his critiques of Edgar Allan Poe. In 1987, Wilbur became the second poet laureate of the United States.