Kunitz, Stanley Jasspon, 1905-2006, American poet, teacher, and editor, b. Worcester, Mass. He graduated from Harvard (B.A., 1926; M.A., 1927), worked as a journalist and editor, and taught poetry at many colleges and universities, notably Columbia (1967-85). Influenced by Carl Jung, his poetry, which began as complex and metaphysical and grew simpler and more intense over the years, is filled with recurring myths, themes, and symbols. It is collected in such volumes as Intellectual Things (1930), Selected Poems, 1928-1958 (1958; Pulitzer Prize), The Testing Tree (1971), The Poems of Stanley Kunitz: 1928-1978 (1979), The Wellfleet Whale and Companion Poems (1983), Next-to-Last Things (1985), and Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected (1995; National Book Award). Kunitz was also the editor (with Howard Haycraft) of such reference books as Twentieth Century Authors (1942), and British Authors before 1800 (1952) and translated works by several Russian poets. He held the post of consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress (1974-76), an office that was the predecessor of the poet laureate, and was U.S. poet laureate (2000-2001). His Collected Poems was published in 2000.

(born July 29, 1905, Worcester, Mass., U.S.—died May 14, 2006, New York, N.Y.) U.S. poet. He worked as an editor while contributing verse to magazines; much of it was collected in volumes such as Selected Poems 1928–1958 (1958, Pulitzer Prize). With The Testing-Tree (1971), he began to write shorter, looser, more emotional poetry. Among his later collections, noted for their subtle craftsmanship and treatment of complex themes, are The Coat Without a Seam (1974), The Lincoln Relics (1978), Next-to-Last Things (1985), and Passing Through (1995). He was also U.S. poet laureate twice (1974–76, 2000–01).

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Stanley Jasspon Kunitz /'kju:nɪts/ (July 29, 1905–May 14, 2006) was an American poet who served two years (1974–1976) as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (a precursor to the modern Poet Laureate program), and served another year as United States Poet Laureate in 2000.

Life

Stanley Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1905. He was raised by his Lithuanian-Jewish mother, Yetta Helen Jasspon, and stepfather, Mark Dine, who died when Kunitz was 14. His father, Solomon Z. Kunitz, a dressmaker, committed suicide six weeks before Kunitz was born.

Kunitz graduated summa cum laude in 1926 from Harvard College and earned a master's degree in English from Harvard the following year. After Harvard, he worked as a reporter for The Worcester Telegram, and as editor for the H.W. Wilson Company in New York City until he was drafted in 1943. As a conscientious objector, Kunitz served as a noncombatant in the US Army during World War II, and was discharged with the rank of staff sergeant. After the war, he began a teaching career at Bennington College, New York State Teachers College in Potsdam, New York, New School for Social Research, University of Washington, Queens College, Vassar, Brandeis, Yale, Rutgers, and a 22-year stint at Columbia University.

At Wilson Company, Kunitz served as editor of the Wilson Library Bulletin and as co-editor for Twentieth Century Authors, among other reference works. In 1931, as Dilly Tante, he edited Living Authors, a Book of Biographies. His poems began to appear in Poetry, Commonweal, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Dial.

Kunitz's poetry has won praise from all circles as being profound and well written. He continued to write and publish as late as 2005, at the age of 100. Many believe his poetry's symbolism is influenced significantly by the work of Carl Jung. Kunitz was an influence on many 20th century poets, including James Wright, Mark Doty, Louise Glück, and Carolyn Kizer.

His marriages to poet Helen Pearce and actress Eleanor Evans ended in divorce. His third wife, artist Elise Asher, died in 2004. Kunitz divided his time between New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts for most of his life. He enjoyed gardening and maintained one of the most impressive seaside gardens in Provincetown. He was a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a mainstay of the literary community, and of Poets House in Manhattan. He died in 2006 at his home in Manhattan. He had previously come close to death, and reflected on the experience in his last book, a collection of essays, The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden.

He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award in Sherborn, MA in October 1998.

Poet

His first collection of poems, Intellectual Things, was published in 1930. His second volume of poems, "Passport to the War," was published fourteen years later when the author ([if Kunitz served as a noncombat he could not be fighting on the European front at the same time)and was fighting on the European front in World War II. Although it featured some of the author's best-known poems, the book went largely unnoticed and soon fell out of print. Kunitz's confidence was not in the best of shape when, in 1959, he had trouble finding a publisher for his third book, "Selected Poems: 1928-1958." Despite this unflattering experience, the book, eventually published by Little Brown, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His next volume of poems would not appear until 1971, but Kunitz remained busy through the 1960s editing reference books and translating Russian poets. When twelve years later "The Testing Tree" appeared, Kunitz's style was radically transformed from the highly intellectual and philosophical musings to more deeply personal yet disciplined narratives; moreover, his lines shifted from iambic pentameter to a freer prosody based on instinct and breath--usually resulting in shorter, three-four stressed lines. Throughout the 70s and 80s he became one of the most treasured and distinctive voices in American poetry. His collection Passing Through: The Later Poems won the National Book Award in 1995. Kunitz received many other honors, including a National Medal of Arts, the Bollingen Prize for a lifetime achievement in poetry, the Robert Frost Medal, and Harvard's Centennial Medal. He served two terms as Consultant on Poetry for the Library of Congress (the precursor title to Poet Laureate), one term as Poet Laureate of the United States, and one term as the state poet of New York. He founded the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Poets House in New York City. He judged for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. He was considered by many observers to be the most distinguished and accomplished poet in the United States at the time of his death in 2006.

Library Bill of Rights

Kunitz served as the editor of the Wilson Library Bulletin from 1928 to 1943. In this capacity he was highly critical of librarians who did not actively oppose censorship. He published an article in 1938 by Bernard Berelson entiteld "The Myth of Library Impartiality". This article led Forrest Spaulding and the Des Moines Public Library to develop the Library Bill of Rights which was later adopted by the American Library Association and continues to serve as the conerstone of intellectual freedom in libraries.

Bibliography

Poetry

• The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden (2005)
• The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz (2000)
• The Wild Card: Selected Poems, Early and Late (edited by Karl Shapiro with David Ignatow)
• Passing Through, The Later Poems, New and Selected (1995)
• Next-to-Last Things: New Poems and Essays (1985)
• The Wellfleet Whale and Companion Poems
• The Terrible Threshold
• The Coat without a Seam
• The Poems of Stanley Kunitz (1928–1978) (1978)
• The Testing-Tree (1971)
• Selected Poems, 1928-1958 (1958)
• Passport to the War (1940)
• Intellectual Things (1930)

Other writing and interviews:

• ''A Kind of Order, A Kind of Folly: Essays and Conversations'
• Interviews and Encounters with Stanley Kunitz

As editor, translator, or co-translator:

• The Essential Blake
• Orchard Lamps by Ivan Drach
• Story under full sail by Andrei Voznesensky
• Poems of John Keats
• Poems of Akhmatova by Max Hayward

References

External links

• Poems by Stanley Kunitz at PoetryFoundation.org
• Stanley Kunitz's page at "The Academy of American Poets"
• Worcester Area Writers - Stanley Kunitz
• Washington Post "Pulitzer-Winning Poet Stanley Kunitz Dies" 16 May 2006
• Stanley Kunitz "Three Small Parables for My Poet Friends" at the Oxford University Press blog
• "Halley's Comet" a poem by Stanley Kunitz
• Searching for Green Street: A Memorial for Stanley Kunitz, 1905-2006
• http://www.videovoom.com/FilesForPeoplePoets/KunitzStanley/VideoPoemStanleyKunitzReadingTheLayersOn022006InNYCApt.htm