Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Jasspon Kunitzwas an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth29 July 1905
CityWorcester, MA
heart heart-break break
In a murderous time/the heart breaks and breaks/and lives by breaking.
layers next-chapter
Live in the layers, not on the litter.
football passion desire
What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire.
art book moon
In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers,not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it. no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes
dog needs half
Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms.
believe practice doe
I refuse to turn to theology to justify the life or redeem it. There is a question always of the connection to the eternal. I say to myself above all, keep alive your conviction that there are sacred elements in the life in the practice of the life that must be respected. But the conviction in the existence of the sacred does not necessarily imply that you need to believe in a creator, because we are the ones that made the sacred.
dream art writing
I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.
summer writing thinking
I dropped my hoe and ran into the house and started to write this poem, 'End of Summer.’ It began as a celebration of wild geese. Eventually the geese flew out of the poem, but I like to think they left behind the sound of their beating wings.
marriage house rooms
In every house of marriage there's room for an interpreter.
writing ears pages
...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.
writing tasks firsts
The first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems.
made critics feels
One critic wrote . . . that my poems sounded as though they had been translated from the Hungarian. I don't know why, but somehow that made me feel quite lighthearted.
writing mind ears
The ear writes my poems, not the mind.
enemy poetry-is
Poetry is the enemy of the poem.