Imagining the Real (Amos Wilder Library)

The graphic artist Margaret Rigg met Amos Wilder through The Society for Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture (ARC), of which Wilder, together with such figures as Joseph Campbell and Paul Tillich, was a founder in the early 1960s. In 1978 Rigg published Imagining the Real, a limited edition (350 copies with designs) as an expression of "homage" to Wilder with a special emphasis on his poetry. This unusual publication includes an extensive interview between Rigg and Wilder covering his upbringing and its influence on his life as a writer and poet; an original essay by Wilder on themes suggested by the interview "A Comment . . . " six poems by Wilder selected to depict shifting sensibilities over his six-decades-long career as a practicing poet; and a lively self-annotated overview of his life and career "Wilderiana: Dates and Places" The volume concludes with poems dedicated to Wilder by Stanley Romaine Hopper and Arnold Kenseth. Long known only to students of Amos Wilder and his family, the republication of Imagining the Real makes available to a broader public an unusual window on the story of Amos Wilder, poet.

Amos N. Wilder (1895-1993), New Testament scholar, poet, literary critic, and clergyman, received all earned degrees from Yale. His teaching career included posts at Andover Newton Theological School, Chicago Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago, and Harvard Divinity School. Special honors included the Golden Rose of the New England Poetry Club (1943) and the Bross Prize (1952). Wilder also received the Croix de guerre for service in World War I. He was the brother of playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder.