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Stanley Kunitz
"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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