Richard Howard

If a celebrity walks by and you don’t recognize him, is he still a celebrity? More to the point, today is Richard Howard’s 77th birthday (photo by Betsy Bell). To some, he’s just an old man in round glasses with thick frames hanging around the Washington Square Park dog run; to me, he’s the owner of a wicked cute French bulldog. He’s also the Pulitzer Prize–winning poetry editor of “The Paris Review” and probably the best translator of French poetry working today. Have a happy and a healthy, as they say, Mr. Howard.