expression is smoothed out, even
more so than in the intellectual
rigors of the poems about aging
and mortality.
It becomes increasingly clear
with the passage of time and the
concomitant movement through
the pages of this collection that
Kunitz — as one might expect
from a man thrice-married —
enjoys sex, enjoys intimacy.
But his greatest strength, one
that runs throughout this vol-
ume regardless of the period
from which the poems derive, is
the ability to connect landscape
and natural phenomena to a
subjective psychological state.
The peak of Kunitz's achieve-
ment is the longest poem in the
collection, "The Wellfleet
Whale."
The poem is a recollection of
an encounter with a whale
washed up on the beach and
consequently dying, a poem
unbearably poignant in its skill-
ful evocation of a shared, strange
moment of communication
between poet and massive crea-
ture, and of the casual cruelty of
human behavior.
Perhaps it is the internal logic
of emotion dictated by Kunitz's
past that makes him able to find
a connection, however fleeting,
with this literal fish (mammal)-
out-of-water.
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From his book "Next-To-Last
Things," this poem was written on
Stanley Kunitz's 79th birthday.
Minimum 25•ie
Nobody in the widow's household
ever celebrated anniversaries.
In the secrecy of my room
I would not admit I cared
that my friends were given parties.
Before I left town for school
my birthday went up in smoke
in a fire at City Hall that gutted
the Department of Vital Statistics.
If it weren't for a census report
of a five-year-old White Male
sharing my mother's address
at the Green Street tenement in Worcester
I'd have no documentary proof
that I exist. You are the first,
thy dear, to bully me
into these festive occasions.
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Sometimes, you say, I wear
an abstracted look that drives you
up the wall, as though it signified
distress or disaffection.
Don't take it so to heart.
Maybe I enjoy not-being as much
as being who I am. Maybe
it's time for me to practice
growing old. The way I look
at it, I'm passing through a phase:
gradually I'm changing to a word.
Whatever you choose to claim
of me is always yours:
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.
In May 2000, Kunitz received
the Jewish Cultural Achievement
Award in Literary Arts from the
National Foundation of Jewish
Culture. It was presented to him
by his predecessor as poet laureate,
Robert Pinsky.
That evening, Kunitz spoke about
his Jewish heritage as the son of
Lithuanian Jewish immigrants.
"I score no points in terms of reli-
gious observance," he said. "But I do
eel that I have strong religious yearn-
ing[s] and I've sought them in many
different areas. Of course, the Old
Testament means a great deal to me. I
also have been influenced and inspired
by teachings of the masters of other
religions: Jesus, Lao Tze, the Buddha.
"They all are part of my feelings
F
about spiritual sources. But the feeling
I have about my ethical and cultural
heritage is where my Jewish ancestry
begins to speak to me, and certainly
has influenced a deep pool within me.
It has changed my nature, affected it."
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— From "The Collected Poems
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had to cope with a missing father who
committed suicide before his birth,
and a mother embittered by that
absence. In "The Portrait," he wrote:
My mother never forgave my
father/for killing himself,/especially at
such an awkward time/and in a public
park,/that spring/when I waiting to be
born.
Ever since then, it seems, Kunitz has
fought to be alive, to continue to be
alive, feeling that, as he writes in "The
Long Boat":
"He loved the earth so much/he
vranted to stay forever."
Reaching his age probably feels like
a fair approximation of forever; and
when one leaves behind a legacy as
elegant as The Collected Poems, it's the
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2001
73