credit: Ted Rosenberg |
“The poem comes in the form
of a blessing—‘like rapture breaking on the mind,’ as
I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years
I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining,
life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one
live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse
is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.”
—Stanley Kunitz
:: Stanley Kunitz welcomed his ninety-fifth year in 2000.
He has received nearly every honor bestowed upon a poet
in this country, including the Pulitzer and Bollingen
Prizes, a National Medal of Arts from President Clinton
in 1993, and the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society
of America in 1998. He has served twice as Poet Laureate
of the United States, as State Poet of New York, and
as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. For
many years he taught in the graduate writing program
at Columbia University. As editor of the Yale Younger
Poets Series from 1969 to 1997, and as founder of both
the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts,
and Poets House in New York City, he has promoted poetry
and public access to the arts, encouraging many of the
younger poets and artists who are now prominent figures
in American culture. Kunitz and his wife, the artist
Elise Asher, live in New York City and Provincetown,
where he cultivates a celebrated seaside garden.
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