Stanley Kunitz (1905–2006) was a highly distinguished American poet whose career spanned over 75 years. He is best known for his late-life vitality, serving as the U.S. Poet Laureate at age 95.
Early Life and Education
- Childhood Tragedy: Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Kunitz suffered early trauma when his father committed suicide six weeks before his birth. This “absent father” became a central recurring theme in his poetry.
- Academic Excellence: Kunitz graduated from Worcester Classical High School in 1922, and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1926. He earned his Master’s in 1927. Despite his success, he was denied a teaching position at Harvard because faculty told him, “Anglo-Saxons would resent being taught English by a Jew”.
Career and Military Service
- Editorial Work: Before becoming a professor, he worked as a reporter and a prolific editor for the H.W. Wilson Company, co-editing foundational reference works like Twentieth Century Authors.
- World War II: Kunitz was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, serving as a non-combatant until 1945.
- Teaching: He taught at various institutions, including Bennington College and Columbia University, where he served as an adjunct professor for over 20 years, mentoring generations of poets like Louise Glück.
Poetic Style and Evolution
- Early Phase: His early collections, Intellectual Things (1930) and Passport to the War (1944), featured highly formal, intellectual, and “metaphysical” verse.
- The Turning Point: In 1971, The Testing-Tree marked a shift to a “freer,” more personal, and accessible style.
- Major Honors:
- Pulitzer Prize (1959): For Selected Poems, 1928-1958.
- National Book Award (1995): For Passing Through.
- U.S. Poet Laureate: Served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1974–1976) and was named Poet Laureate in 2000.
Legacy and Later Life
- Community Building: Kunitz was a dedicated advocate for the arts, co-founding the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA (1968) and Poets House in New York City (1985).
- Death: He died of pneumonia in Manhattan on May 14, 2006, at the age of 100.
- Centenarian Poet: He remained active into his final year, publishing The Wild Braid (2005), which combined his love of poetry with his lifelong passion for gardening.
Discussion of the Poetry of Stanley Kunitz
More information on Stanley Kunitz from the Worcester County Poetry Association