Oct 09, 2016 07:07 PM
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It says a great deal about Stanley Kunitz that he was 95 when he was named Poet Laureate for the second time. First, it reminds us that he lived to a great age - he died, in 2006, at 100 - and was a vital talent right to the end. And, even more, it underscores that his career was more of a marathon than a sprint. W.H. Auden got it exactly: "It's strange, but give him time. A hundred years or so. He's a patient man. He won't mind waiting."
The really fascinating news, though, is that Stanley Kunitz continually improved as a poet. "Passing Through: The Later Poems" - almost universally considered the best of his ten books - was published when he was 95. And, for once, "best" and "most accessible" belong in the same sentence. For as he aged, Kunitz said, "I've learned to strip the water out of my poems." The result is a clarity and directness that makes Kunitz an ideal poet both for people who only sort of like poetry and for those who like to dig into the poem and explore the layers.
Digging in: That's the right phrase to describe the pleasure of a Kunitz poem. He was a lifelong gardener, and as soon as he arrived at his summer home on Cape Cod he was with his plants: tending, pruning, marveling.(His final book, published in 2007, is a gardening chronicle.)
This connection with growing things is closely connected to the key issue of Kunitz's life and work - parenting. An odd connection? Consider the biography. A few weeks before he was born, his father drank carbolic acid and died. His mother, a tough-minded immigrant, raised two daughters and Stanley for eight years, then married a charming, loving man who was like a father to the boy. Alas, he had a fatal heart attack four years later.
Kunitz might have found "the lost father" at Harvard, but after graduating summa cum laude he was told there was no teaching opportunity there - the Christian students might resent a literature instructor who was a Jew. He gigged around, committed himself to poetry and began a seventy-five year career as a poet.
The poems in "Passing Through" touch all the bases. Right off, we get the primary wound(which Kunitz repeated by leaving his first wife and young daughter): "You say you had a father once/his name was absence." He has a healthy interest in women: "I think I'd rather sleep forever/than wake up cold/in a country without women." He has a loving father's appreciation for his daughter: "I like the sound of your voice/even when you phone from school/asking for money." And on the biggest topic of all:
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.
