Last nite I saw Stanley Kunitz on PBS's Charlie Rose show. Kunitz was
appointed Poet Laureate for the US a couple of months ago.
It was delightful. He is 95 years old, and his first volume of poetry came
out in the 1920's. He discussed his first major influences, Keats and
Hopkins, and spoke about being a poet and the poetic process.
Most memorable was a comment that he made that writing poetry got harder as
he got older--when one is younger, he said, one's glands do a lot of the
writing. Also as one gets older, one doesnt want to repeat oneself so a
poet must dig deeepr into the debris of life. He said it was hard,
painful--and joyous, too.
All in all it was a very good conversation with a poetic elder. I had had
trepidations after his selection, coming after the terms of the energetic
Robert Pinsky, but I feel he will do just fine.
If you can obtain a tape of the broadcast I'd recommend it highly.
Chris Hayden
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