Comments on: It is my heart that's late, / it is my song that's flown.

It is my heart that's late, / it is my song that's flown.

jesourie — Mon, 15 May 2006 14:48:33 -0800

A song has flown. Former Poet Laureate of the United States Stanley Kunitz has died at the age of 100. Through his work as a founding member of the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, a former judge for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, and through his own delicate words, he has left an indelible mark on the world of poetry.

By: freebird

freebird — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:00:03 -0800

I'm the boy in the white flannel gown sprawled on this coarse gravel bed searching the starry sky, waiting for the world to end. Thank you Stanley and thank you jesurie.

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:27:39 -0800

Town of Provincetown Honors Kunitz. NPR -- Poet Stanley Kunitz at 100 [July 29, 2005].

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:30:56 -0800

MeFi thread from last summer honoring his 100th. birthday celebration. MeFite digaman recounts personal memories of Kunitz in the thread.

By: bardic

bardic — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:31:20 -0800

I'm not a huge fan, but I got to see him read once at the Library of Congress, and it was a hell of an experience.

By: herrdoktor

herrdoktor — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:41:33 -0800

He acknowledged, however, that writing poetry grew harder with age. "The poems are there," he told the Boston Globe in 2000, "but they lie under the debris of the life. One has to dig for them very much harder than one had to at the beginning, when poetry is so largely, in one's youth, a glandular activity." I'd tack on a "." but feel the need to say something-- anything, really, other than "well, gee, that quote rings so true and he was a great writer, etc., etc." I focused on modern poetry in undergrad, and wrote a share of poems but found it more and more difficult to really make anything of merit (which is depressing when I think about how my expections of poetry have sunk over the past decade, and how I'm only trying to please myself). With everyone and his mother professing to be not just a writer, but a (pass me the barf bag) poet, and the growth of slams and "spoken word," I've largely grown to detest the part of me that tries to write and just gave up. Instead, I'm reminded and brush up on poets I love. Kunitz was one of them. "The Unquiet Ones" slows my day to a standstill, and convinces me of a beauty I keep forgetting about. Each rediscovery feels new. So thanks, jesourie, for the sad news.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:47:15 -0800

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:54:29 -0800

"The Testing-Tree", section 4 In the recurring dream my mother stands in her bridal gown under the burning lilac, with Bernard Shaw and Bertie Russell kissing her hands; the house behind her is in ruins; she is wearing an owl's face and makes barking noises. Her minatory finger points. I pass through the cardboard doorway askew in the field and peer down a well where an albino walrus huffs. He has the gentlest eyes. If the dirt keeps sifting in, staining the water yellow, why should I be blamed? Never try to explain. That single Model A sputtering up the grade unfurled a highway behind where the tanks maneuver, revolving their turrets. In a murderous time the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. It is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and not to turn. I am looking for the trail. Where is my testing-tree? Give me back my stones!

By: trip and a half

trip and a half — Mon, 15 May 2006 19:52:03 -0800

By: lilboo

lilboo — Mon, 15 May 2006 20:09:14 -0800

By: Dean Keaton

Dean Keaton — Tue, 16 May 2006 00:21:39 -0800

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Tue, 16 May 2006 02:24:09 -0800

Godspeed, Mr. Kunitz. .

By: digaman

digaman — Tue, 16 May 2006 06:26:58 -0800

This poem was linked, but I want to post it in the blue. Of the sky, that is, viewed over Provincetown Harbor from a garden at the top of the hill on the West End. (And thanks for remembering, ericb.) Touch Me _Summer is late, my heart_. Words plucked out of the air some forty years ago when I was wild with love and torn almost in two scatter like leaves this night of whistling wind and rain. It is my heart that's late, it is my song that's flown. Outdoors all afternoon under a gunmetal sky staking my garden down, I kneeled to the crickets trilling underfoot as if about to burst from their crusty shells; and like a child again marveled to hear so clear and brave a music pour from such a small machine. What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire. The longing for the dance stirs in the buried life. One season only, and it's done. So let the battered old willow thrash against the windowpanes and the house timbers creak. Darling, do you remember the man you married? Touch me, remind me who I am. Stanley Kunitz Thank you, Mr. Kunitz.

By: painquale

painquale — Tue, 16 May 2006 08:15:31 -0800

Most poets are terrible at reading their poems out loud. Kunitz, however, was fantastic. .

By: verysleeping

verysleeping — Tue, 16 May 2006 11:46:57 -0800

Outside of his remarkable body of work, Kunitz ought also be remembered as a great editor and mentor. Check out this list of a few of his selections for the Yale Younger prize -- Carolyn Forche, Robert Hass' brilliant Field Guide, Peter Klappert, Hugh Seidman's stunning Collecting Evidence. He worked very closely with Louis Gluck, and I highly highly recommend her fascinating and charming essay "On Stanley Kunitz" from Proofs and Theories. Kunitz cast a long shadow. Rest in Peace. .

By: Uccellina

Uccellina — Tue, 16 May 2006 11:53:28 -0800