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The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz

Hardcover | Pages: 288 pages

Rating: 4.27 | 495 Users | 42 Reviews

Details Out Of Books The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

Title	:	The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz
Author	:	Stanley Kunitz
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 288 pages
Published	:	October 17th 2000 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published 2000)
Categories	:	Poetry. Literature

Description In Pursuance Of Books The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz's collected poems are an unassailable argument for age, experience, and impassioned observation. At 95, America's 10th poet laureate has many decades' worth of work under his belt, and his lyrics form a fine self-portrait even as they track his evolution toward the spare and simple. Kunitz's later poetry seems to effortlessly fuse feeling and form. With considerable wit, he sees into the life of things: a brook or a bird, a squirrel or a salmon is very much a part of nature, but it is also infinitely more, as anyone lucky enough to have read "King of the River," "The Snakes of September," and "The Wellfleet Whale" knows.

Kunitz's "Reflections," which preface his Collected Poems, offer several modest credos. In one, he writes, "I like to think that it is the poet's love of particulars, the things of this world, that leads him to universals." And his work is ample proof that what Kunitz likes to think is right! In "Robin Redbreast," for instance, the poet--living in an empty house that will soon be his no longer and facing nothing but blank pages--rescues a bird from some belligerent jays:

It was the dingiest bird
you ever saw, all the color
washed from him, as if
he had been standing in the rain,
friendless and stiff and cold,
since Eden went wrong.

Alas, a moment's complacency at his own good deed comes to a quick end. There is no need for the poet to drive home his point--he merely provides the tragic image of an old bullet hole in the robin's head, through which he catches a glimpse of "the cold flash of the blue / unappeasable sky." Yet Kunitz did not arrive at this level without effort, and much of the pleasure of this volume lies in witnessing the growth of the poet's mind. In his first collection, Intellectual Things (1930), the young artist seems to have spent a good deal of time luxuriating in the early Yeats, displaying a sweet tooth for allegory and archaic inversion. Perhaps thinking himself "a fierce young crier / Of poems," the youthful Kunitz pursued the sublime a little too relentlessly. His second book, Passport to the War (1944), is radically different, full of darkness and repudiation, its realities and anger very close to the surface. But it really isn't until The Testing-Tree, where family comes to the fore and influence is no longer cause for anxiety, that the poet finds his voice--one that has yet to desert him.

Several of Kunitz's finest, and most desolate, poems explore his father's suicide, which took place before he was born. Others, on Mark Rothko and Alexander Calder, celebrate creation in the face of immense difficulty. And there are poems, too, of resistance: this generous collection includes translations of Mandelstam, Akhmatova, and Blok, as well as his own "Around Pastor Bonhoeffer," which commemorates the pacifist cleric who was part of the plot to kill Hitler. Throughout there are also love songs--to nature and women. "Route Six" makes one wonder why there isn't an official term for a poem celebrating an enduring marriage--an epithalamium with, as they say, legs. After a quarrel, Kunitz suggests to his wife that they head for the Cape, taking with them those passions "that flare past understanding":

we can stow them in the rear
along with ziggurats of luggage
and Celia, our transcendental cat,
past-mistress of all languages,
including Hottentot and silence.

In "The Layers," the poet asks point-blank: "How shall the heart be reconciled / to its feast of losses?" Reconciliation, Kunitz knows, isn't possible, but his work proves that the raptures of love and art are a strong consolation. --Kerry Fried

Particularize Books In Favor Of The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

Original Title:	The Collected Poems
ISBN:	0393050300 (ISBN13: 9780393050301)
Edition Language:	English

Rating Out Of Books The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

Ratings: 4.27 From 495 Users | 42 Reviews

Column Out Of Books The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz

Really don't like these, even though I'm reading them in a house on Cape Cod, sauntering down to Wellfleet to see where the whale was. He's 'poetic' in a way that sets my teeth on edge, and he over-elaborates and fussies-up Mandelstam, which is not a good thing. Still, he wrote till he was in his 90's, so props for that.

Some of the best poems by one of the greatest poets who has ever lived. What an amazing human being. And what a perfect mosaic these poems create to show what it means to be one. Read "Touch Me" if you need convincing. I stopped breathing the first time I read it.

Reminded me again how much I dislike symbolism in poetry. Kunitz's poetry is nice enough but only gets its familiar quality in the later poems.Nice overview of his poetry though, and Kunitz's foreword makes me curious to read his prose.

As someone who loves poetry, I did not know Stanley Kunitz until I read some quotes from him in another book I was reading. Of course, he immediately peaked my curiosity and so I set out to learn about him and read a selection of his poetry. The Collected Poems is a great way to get a taste of Kunitz and see how his poetry evolved as his life evolved. Kunitz essentially lived through the entire century and witnessed both World Wars, the Great Depression, putting men on the moon, the rise and

Kunitz, being in the poetic lineage of Gilbert, really opened up a lot of meanings for me. His Testing Tree poems are amazing really for his time. The body of work is a vital read for anyone interested in fathering/mothering poetry.



All that holds me back from 5 stars are the early poems, which I just didn't dig--formal beyond structure into overly cerebral work that tries to be too high and mighty. Get into the 70's, and the magnificence of Kunitz really starts to show.