Product Description
The early poems, long unavailable in any edition, sound themes that have always engaged Kunitz: life's meaning, the relation of time to eternity, kinship with nature, and loss, most poignantly that of his father. But despite the power of his poems about loss, Kunitz remains ardent in celebrating life. He fully lives up to his own advice to younger poets "to persevere, then explore. Be explorers all your life."Amazon.com Review
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.

Customer Reviews (6)

Excellent collection
I had never purchased a book of poetry before but this was recommended to me and I am very glad I bought it. The collection is superb.

The Lightshines in the Darkness of Lives, But Not Here!
Never can I match Shalom Freedman of 1500+ Reviews and 60 in two weeks of July! Completing most of THE WILD BRAID, I browsed thru other Collections of Sir Stanley...He hooked me early in the midst of his neatly arranged Reflections! Since my getting stung by hearing him read, "The Layers" on NPR's Infinite Mind, I felt urged to get to writing my Oft' Postponed Autobio Reflections!

Whenever I meditate early each Morn on his infinitely inspiring poems I start with THE LAYERS from 6th Group of Reflections bythe same Name! Goodies under that title: The KNOT; Words For The Unknown Makers: "To A Slave Named Job; "Girl With Sampler; "A Soft Answer Turns Away Wrath; "A Blessing of Women." THese 16pp proceed quite neatly into his Awesome, Consuming, though much Longer: "The Lincoln Relics" and "The Meditations on Death!"

Unless it be too hasty to add: I have named these as Best of his Poems to be found in The LAYERS! This 6th Group of Reflections fall into the dates of 1928-1978

In Summary: Three sections of Longer + Numerous Poems lie within THIS GARLAND, DANGER in SELECTED POEMS of 1928-1958 (4th Group) and THE TESTING-TREE of 1971 (5th Group) When I choose my great Favorites of his shorter Poems: VITA NUOVA; SOTTO VOCE; SUMMERSOLSTICE.. They combine varied length of lines, 2-3 verses, are both rhymed and free-style; SUMMER SOLSTICE is like Prose with a bit of punctuation. SOTTO VOCE has no punctuation, yet simpler and more personally focused!

Regardless from each perspective, anyone looking into Stanley'sPoetry, may find he becomes less & less an Enigma! Exactly as stated in THE LAYERS of 1978: "and I am not who I WAS! My caps & my ending conclusion. Mit great Adoration--Retired 75yr old, Chap Fred W Hood

For the endurance alone - a triumph of the human spirit
These 'Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz' were put together when the poet was ninety- five years old. He now is approaching one - hundred and his birthday will be celebrated this year, also with another collection of his poetry.
There are many reasons for wanting to read such a collection. First of all, it is interesting to see what a person has done in the course of a lifetime of work. As I understand it Kunitz evolved in style from a complex Blakean kind of writing to a more mature and simple style in which personal elements and reflections play a stronger part. Secondly, it is interesting to understand the accumulated ' wisdom' not simply in relation to his own literary craft but also about life and love in general. It is also interesting to see the kind of universes and worlds a person explores in their lifetime, in Kunitz's case these are of course many of the giants of English poetry, but his interests are also in activities like gardening,Jewish mystics, Russian poets of this century, and of course the passions of romantic love.
I think that there is something also here which is especially admirable. Faithfulness to the task, the dedication and the ability to work through many years, is a triumph of the human spirit.
This gives an added dimension to the enjoyment of the poetry.

Read This Collection of Poems Even If You Don't Read Poetry
I heartily recommend this book of poems, and I especially recommend it to the reader who never or rarely ever reads poetry. What a treat is in store for you.

Great
This is a great collection of poems. I recommend the book ... Read more

Product Description
"A graceful and moving glimpse into a rare and giving artist's refined poetics, garden aesthetics, and spirituality."—BooklistThroughout his life (1905-2006) Stanley Kunitz created poetry and tended gardens. This book is the distillation of conversations, none previously published, that took place between 2002 and 2004. Beginning with the garden, that "work of the imagination," the explorations journey through personal recollections, the creative process, and the harmony of the life cycle. A bouquet of poems and a total of 26 full-color photographs accompany the various sections. The Wild Braid received a 2006 American Horticultural Society Book Award. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Beautiful book
Stanley Kunitz was a terrific poet who lived to be 100 years old andwelcomed each new day as possibly the beginning of a new stage of life. His poetry and his garden seemed to have been of equal importance to him; he committed himself to both lifelong projects. Cherishing the wilderness in language and in nature, he made a distinction between a true "garden," and mere "landscaping" designed to be admired; he made a similar distinction between poems arising from the inner man and poems written as a kind of entertainment. This is a perfectly beautiful book, in form and content. Kunitz remained as lucid in his hundredth year as I could wish to be tomorrow morning!

Thoughts on the garden, life, and death
Like many people, I grew into the world of poetry with Kunitz as a guide, a teacher, a thoughtful poet, and a role model of what the human spirit could achieve.I just recently read this book straight through.I enjoyed hearing Kunitz's thoughtful voice that was captured so clearly in these transcription, and after viewing all the photos, I only wished I had been close enough to Kunitz to see his garden.The down side of the book are the juvenile and intrusive dialogues with his assistant.She seems more concerned with exhibiting her undergraduate inquisitiveness about death.Kunitz is so far beyond that as I would imagine most readers would be.If the reader is still at the stage where she or he feels that death is the ultimate question and there are logical approaches to it, maybe those sections will seem interesting.For me they dragged down the essence of the text: Kunitz giving his philosophy of life in the garden and life in the poem.

Wisdom for the young and the old
It was when Stanley Kunitz died and I read an obituary about his life that I became aware of this amazing poet. The phrase that caught my heart was "The poem comes in the form of a blessing , like rapture breaking on the mind."

The Wild Braid is all that.Poetry, wisdom, insight, story, rapture.It delivers the context for many of Kunitz's exceptional poems through stories about his childhood to his old age.Since reading this book 4 years ago, I have purchased over 20 copies to give to friends, work colleagues and family.It's made young people celebrate poetry and old people laugh with joy.It shares a complete lifetime of thoughtful observations about how we navigate through the world with grace...and gardens.A book not to be missed.

Visual & written poetry for anyone who loves nature.
The photography is as touching and mystical as the poetry itself which is elegant and profound in it's beautiful straightforward simplicity.A testament to aging gracefully.What a wonderful book on every level.

A Masterpiece
I love and adore this book and would have loved to have known Kunitz. His thoughts on poetry and gardening mix beautifully into a book that I have read again and again. As a gardener and lover of poetry, I couldn't ask for anything more. ... Read more

Product Description
Winner of the 1995 National Book Award. Stanley Kunitz, one of the masters of contemporary poetry, presents his ninth collection, gathering a rich selection of his work, including new poems that remind us of his prefatory statement: "Art is the chalice into which we pour the wine of transcendence." Nearly all the poems of Kunitz's later years, beginning with The Testing-Tree (1971), are included, and most of the poems in Passing Through are unavailable in any other edition. In "Touch Me," the last poem in the collection, Kunitz propounds a question, "What makes the engine go?" and gives us his answer: "Desire, desire, desire." These poems fairly hum with the energy, the excitement, the ardor, that make Kunitz one of our most enduring and highly honored poets. In the words of Carolyn Forche, "he is a living treasure." Amazon.com Review
Marking his 90th birthday, this Stanley Kunitz greatest hitspackage is a treasure. "The Wellfleet Whale" is one of the best naturepoems of the 20th century, but Kunitz shines brightest when writingabout the family. Notice especially, "The Portrait," which bothdescribes a portrait found in an attic and is itself a portrait ofKunitz's childhood. The poem details a child finding a portrait of hisdead father, a portrait that opens old wounds ("My mother neverforgave my father / for killing himself") even as new wounds are beingformed. This is moving, potent, passionate writing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Easy to read, better to savor
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.

Entitled, Passing Through is one mis-nomer for literal Truth!
After trying for weeks to digeste The Wild Braid as tops, thenhis Collected Poems of several key periods of writing, I can only agree with the shortest ever review, telling of his unique creative insight to look inside my Personhood! (Pun-Intended)

Stanley Kunitz has more than any writer of these past few months including, Karen Armstrong, Fred Buechner, Joan Chittister, Anne Lamott, and Ferrol Sams, Jr.SK has made one totally affective, profoundly life-change upon my writing endeavors! His poems have been handed-off to several friends, who are older, wiser, more gifted writers than I may become! My mistake not give a Perfect--10 Stars! Shalom...Chaplain Fred W. Hood

Touching
Stanley Kunitz not only looks into our hearts, he finds rainbows there.

No need for reviews
Stanley Kunitz veritably sparkles, both in person and on the page. Those who have had the good fortune to hear him read know that his voice imbues his work with life, dancing with his lines in a crisp wry way possible only for someone of his age and sensitivity. If you can't hear him read, however, this book is a stunner, a gift. Each poem literally seizes one's breath, stopping life for the split second it takes to renew it. The poems make their own review. Alyssa A. Lappen

The soul of the poet doesn't age
Pulitzer Prize winner Stanley Kunitz proves that you're never too old to be an artist with this volume of work. His poetry still reflects a passion for life. A good example of this vital spirit is found in 'Touch me'; "Summer is late, my heart./ Words plucked out of the air/ some forty years ago/ when I was wild with love ... Darling, do you remember/ the man you married? Touch me/ remind me who I am." I was also moved by 'The Portrait', which opens with "My mother never forgave my father/ for killing himself, ..." The book contains an bibliography of each poem, and a foreward which the author titles "Instead of a foreward." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Poetry with Heart
The poetry of Stanley Kunitz can be heart-wrenching.I like some of the poems in The Testing-Tree (1971) even though he wears his heart on his sleeve.Such easy sentiment should not move me, but somehow it does."Journal for My Daughter" is so sappy unless you have actually raised a daughter whom you love."Heart" seems to be his favorite word.It is in every poem in fact or in spirit.

why is this book out of print?
Other books by Kunitz are occasionally available, but there are some poems - like "The Science of the Night" - that there is no other way to get.Kunitz has a luminous voice and writes some very good poetry.If youever see this in a second-hand bookshop, you should snap it up. ... Read more

Product Description
Updated and expanded, this widely praised directory lists more than eighty retreats available to visual and performing artists, composers, and writers. Each entry includes complete information on contacting the community, the art disciplines it serves, facilities, housing, meals, season and length of residency, number of artists accommodated, admission deadlines and fees, the selection process, stipends and expenses, duties, programs, institutional history and mission statement, and a list of well-known artists who have been in residence. Wide-ranging disciplines include painting, design, sculpture, ceramics, dance, drama, writing, and other arts/crafts/humanities programs.

The Alliance of Artists' Communities is a national service organization based in Portland, Oregon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Invaluable Resource to Artists in All Media
I, too, just got back from a two-week residency at Norcroft Women Writers Retreat in Minnesota.We passed this book around as well, scribbling addresses in our notebooks.The experience at Norcroft was so special, we wanted more opportunities.This book opened the door for us.Browsing other residencies was a joy.I am planning on buying my own copy.

Useful resource for creating an artist's community
I bought this book as a resource for ideas on what we might need to do in Waukegan, Illinois to create an artists community here. It seems clear that building around the arts is the most organic way to rebuild our downtown and lakefront area. As such, we are looking for ways to create new gallery and studio space, foster live/work space creation and even establish the City as a destination for artist colonies and retreats. Obviously, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. The best way to learn some of the things we could do is to study what other communities have done. This book has served that end very well. I plan to visit some of the communities and residences outlined in this book to learn even more of what could be duplicated here in Waukegan. Make no mistake, the book is not intended to be a "how to" book for creating an artists community, but by describing what various communities offer it serves that purpose aptly.

Important reference for considering art community residency.
This edition has been revised and updated to include nearly eighty residences in the U.S., including complete descriptions on each community from residency lengths and admission deadlines and fees to programsoffered. Histories of the programs complete the overviews which will proveimportant for any considering an art community residency.

Diane C.Donovan Reviewer

A Resident Responds
I'm just back from Johnson VT, The Vermont Studio Center, where artist residents were eagerly passing this book from table to table at meals. It appears to be a great time-saving source as applying for grants andresidencies can be a full time job. VSC was accurately described so I'mhopeful that the other listings prove to be well researched. I'm listing 4stars as I've just added this book to my shopping list, it may very well bea 5 star reference guide for artists. ... Read more

Product Description
In these interviews, conducted for the most part by leadingyoung poets, we are given the full range of his thinking, his passionand wisdom, his private and public concerns. This book will be keptclose at hand by young poets as a survival kit. Others who care aboutpoetry and the life of the imagination will read and re-read this bookto clear the head. Publishers Weekly recently saluted this PulitzerPrize-winning poet as "a man who is both great and modest, the epitomeof all we would wish our poets to be. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Long lived poet
None of Kunitz's contemporaries has lived as long.He finds the intellect and passions inseparable.Dante's influence in Stanely Kunitz's poetry is internal.Almost all his poems are devotional.

Kunitz taught hundreds of students. His students say he taught them to love their places of origin.Kunitz speaks of language changing into meaning.Language reaches the poet in a shapeless rush.Every artist is born into a style.

Kunitz's association with Theodore Roethke began when they were both young men.Kunitz first began to teach in the late forties at Bennington.He edited a periodical while in high school at the Classical High School in Worcester, MA.After college, Harvard, he worked for a newspaper in Worcester and then he worked for a publisher in New York City.He found an office existence intolerable and moved to a farm in Connecticut.Later he moved to Bucks County and then to Provincetown.He finds that New York City depletes him.He is happiest in Provincetown.

He was born in Worcester in 1905 to Russian immigrant parents.His father died just prior to his birth.His mother had a flourishing business based upon her own dress designs.His household had full sets of Dickens and Tolstoy and other writers.He did not return to Worcester until 1963 when Clark University granted him an honorary degree.Donne, Herbert, Blake and Wordsworth were poetic influences. The Wasteland" shook his world.

He believes a poet needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him.Kunitz has been asked how does a poet garden.He writes at night, sometimes until dawn.Gardening is an aspect of his meditative life.Structure has always been enormously important to Kunitz.Kunitz claims he is enchanted with every step in the process of making things grow.Louise Gluck, Kunitz's student, reports he taught habits ofthought.A sampling of poems appears in the appendix of the book. ... Read more

Product Description
Poetry. Translated into Polish by Adam Szyper. Stanley Kunitz views poetry as "the telling of the stories of the soul" and "a form of spiritual transformation." He eloquently states "If we want to know what it felt like to be alive at any given moment in the long odyssey of the race, it is to poetry we must turn." PASSING THROUGH won a National book award in 1995. This collection of the original work, side-by-side with the Polish translations, captures the dynamic spirit of a powerful voice. A summe cum laude graduate of Harvard, Kunitz has received numerous honors including the Pullitzer Prize, the National Endowment for the Arts Senior Fellowship, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Walt Whitman Citation for Merit, the National Medal of Arts, and the Frost Medal, among others. Before his death in 2006, Kunitz taught for many years at Columbia University. ... Read more

Product Description
Stanley Kunitz has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize for "Selected Poems 1928-1958," the Brandeis Medal of Achievement, the Harriet Monroe Award, and "Poetry's" Levinson Prize. He is editor of the "Yale Series of Younger Poets" and of "Twentieth Century Authors," and is known for his teaching of poetry at such institutions as Columbia, the New School, Yale, Brandeis, and Bennington. ... Read more

Product Description
... a Festschrift dedicated to the poet-teacher by a tribe of friends, students, and fellow poets including Louise Glck, Marie Howe, Kenneth Koch, Cleopatra Mathis, Stanley Moss, Robert Motherwell, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Oliver, and Richard Wilbur. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Antiworlds & The Fifth Ace
Antiworlds & The Fifth Ace, in addition to being the most complete collection of Voznesensky's poems available and offering the reader the Russian originals on facing pages, gives us access to this remarkable poet through equally remarkable translations by well-known American poets.
--- from book's back cover ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Altogether an excellent research tool
I originally found this book in a library and decided to order my own copy.It's very thorough and gives plenty of useful information on hundreds of authors without bogging you down.If you're majoring in Literature and/or have a lot of papers to write, this is the book for you! ... Read more

Product Description
Since the death of Robert Frost, American poetry has seen few major poets create important work in their seventh decade and beyond. Yet today Donald Hall (77), Richard Wilbur (85), Maxine Kumin (81), and, until last year, Stanley Kunitz (100) continue to move from strength to strength. Each has published a new book in the past year and collected further accolades, including the Harvard Arts Medal (awarded to Kumin) and the Ruth Lilly Prize (awarded to Wilbur).

These are poets who bear, in individual and collective ways, the imprint of Frost's legacy: a clear commitment to form; a belief that, "like a piece of ice on a hot stove, a poem must ride on its own melting"; a willingness, even an eagerness, to assume the role of poet-as-witness. Perhaps most appealingly, their poems capture a corner of New England imbued with a spirit that is both of the place and of the poet. Against the backdrop of a dark world, all four create poems that are illumined from within, holding a vision of human possibility steady in the light.

Each poet-profile in The Light Within the Light is based on intimate personal interviews and explores the landscapes, lives, and artistic achievements of the poet. Several poems are woven into each essay, allowing the reader to experience the poet's world in his or her own words. Since the paths of the four poets cross frequently, the essays "converse" with one another, layering the narrative. Detailed informational endnotes and a list of selected readings cite primary and secondary sources of interest for each poet, making the book useful to the lay reader and literary specialist alike.

The book design is by Barry Moser, one of New England's favorite artists and a wood engraver sensitive to poets and their works. He provides a full-page portrait of each of the four poets as well as spot illustrations of great beauty and charm. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Exquisite Volume
This is such a beautifully written little volume, so sensitive, insightful,and inspirational. Ms. Braham's choice of language to describe these poets and their poetry is exquisite!I would highly recommend it to any who enjoy a terrific read!

the light that warms
When I finished this lovely little book I sat there under my reading light for several minutes filled with the that rare satisfaction that some pieces of art lend you. These four poets are among my favorites but I learned so much about them in so little space and their poems came alive to me in an extraordinary way. I went back to my dusty shelves and resurrected them. The book rides on the shoulders of the poet who wrote it for she provides the quiet, direct intimacy that binds you to all of them. She does for each of them something that no award, and they all have many, could ever do and that is she brings them into your hearts. Moser's art adds additional beauty to it. Buy it, give it to people you care deeply about. Share with them the light. ... Read more