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STANLEY KUNITZ - WINTER 2001 FEATURE  

The Cortland Review

FEATURE

Stanley Kunitz
The Poet and The Poem: Stanley Kunitz: An interview and reading with poetry legend, Stanley Kunitz. Grace Cavalieri hosts this one-hour audio program.

Rochelle Ratner
Two New Yorks: Rochelle Ratner reflects on the aftermath of the New York City terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

Gibbons Ruark
The Day a Poem Comes Home: A day in the life of Gibbons Ruark

Michael Brooks Cryer
A book review of James Tate's latest: Memoir of the Hawk

John Kinsella
Further Evidence: the latest chapter of John Kinsella's exclusive autobiographical series

The Poet and The Poem:
Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz welcomed his ninetieth year in 1995 with a collection of his later poems, Passing Through, for which he won the National Book Award. He is the author of twelve volumes of poetry.  His twelfth, The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz, was published by W.W. Norton in October, 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 served as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (now called U.S. Poet Laureate), State Poet of New York, and 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 1977, and as a 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.
The Poet and The Poem with Grace Cavalieri

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Grace talks with Stanley Kunitz  


On October 12, 2000, Stanley Kunitz was named the tenth Poet Laureate of the United States. That night was memorialized with a Reading by the 96-year old poet to a room crowded with fans and admirers. He was given an ovation that was unprecedented in those halls. Stanley is the most beloved poet in America. Never have we seen a criticism of his work or conduct, for indeed, poetry is a kind of behavior, and Stanley's behavior throughout this century is one of benevolence and good will. He has seen the full development of American poetry within his life span nearing 100 years. We have here the audio of his conversation for public radio in an "interview-reading" conducted October 13, 2000. This program was delivered to the public radio universe in January 2001 via NPR satellite.

—Grace Cavalieri

This one-hour program is presented in streaming audio.

Listen to the program



Grace Cavalieri is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Cuffed Frays (Argonne Hotel Press, 2001), and numerous produced plays, including Pinecrest Rest Haven (Word Works, 1998), which premiered at the Common Basis Theatre in New York, 2001. She has also written texts and lyrics for opera, stage, and film. Producer/host of public radio's "The Poet and the Poem" weekly from 1977 to 1997, presenting 2000 poets to the nation, she now produces the series annually from the Library of Congress via NPR satellite. The recipient of awards that include the PEN Fiction Award, The Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Medal as well as others which honor her "significant contribution to poetry" and distinguish her as an exceptional woman, she is part of the poetry faculty at St. Mary's College of Southern Maryland and teaches workshops nationwide. She and her husband, sculptor Kenneth Flynn, live in West Virginia. They have four grown daughters.

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� 2002 The Cortland Review