Stanley Kunitz - Biography

Biography

Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the youngest of three children, to Yetta Helen (née Jasspon) and Solomon Z. Kunitz, both of Jewish Russian Lithuanian decent.

His father, a dressmaker of Russian Sephardic Jewish heritage, committed suicide in a public park six weeks before Stanley was born. After going bankrupt, he went to Elm Park in Worcester, and drank carbolic acid. His mother removed every trace of his father from the household. The death of his father would be a powerful influence of his life.

Kunitz and his two older sisters, Sarah and Sophia, were raised by his mother, who had made her way from Yashwen, Kovno, Lithuania by herself in 1890, and opened a dry goods store. Yetta remarried to Mark Dine in 1912. Yetta and Mark filed for bankruptcy in 1912 and then were indicted by the U.S. District Court for concealing assets. They plead guilty and turned over USD$10,500 to the trustees. Mark Dine died when Kunitz was fourteen, when, while hanging curtains, he suffered a heart attack.

At fifteen he moved out of the house and became a butcher's assistant. Later he got a job as a cub reporter on the The Worcester Telegram, where he would continue working during his summer vacations from college.

Kunitz graduated summa cum laude in 1926 from Harvard College with an English major and a philosophy minor, and then earned a master's degree in English from Harvard the following year. He wanted to continue his studies for a doctorate degree, but was told by the university that the Anglo-Saxon students would not like to be taught by a Jew.

After Harvard, he worked as a reporter for The Worcester Telegram, and as editor for the H.W. Wilson Company in New York City. He then founds and edits Wilson Library Bulletin and starts the Author Biographical Studies. Kunitz married Helen Pearce in 1930, they divorced in 1937. In 1935 he moves to New Hope, Pennsylvania and befriends Theodore Roethke. He married Eleanor Evans in 1939, they had a daughter Gretchen in 1950, and he divorces Eleanor in 1958.

At Wilson Company, Kunitz served as editor as co-editor for Twentieth Century Authors, among other reference works. In 1931, as Dilly Tante, he edited Living Authors, a Book of Biographies. His poems began to appear in Poetry, Commonweal, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Dial.

During World War II he was drafted into the Army in 1943 as a conscientious objector, went through basic training three times, Kunitz served as a noncombatant at Gravely Point, Washington in the Air Transport Command in charge of information and education. He refused a commission and was discharged with the rank of staff sergeant.

After the war, he began a teaching career at Bennington College (1946–1949; taking over from his friend Roethke), New York State Teachers College in Potsdam, New York, New School for Social Research, University of Washington, Queens College, Vassar, Brandeis, Yale, Rutgers, and a 22-year stint at Columbia University.

After his divorce from Eleanor he married the painter and poet Elise Asher (January 15, 1912 - March 8, 2004) in 1958, who had been previously married to artist Nanno de Groot. His marriage to Asher leads to friendships with artists Philip Guston and more so with Mark Rothko.

Kunitz's poetry has won praise from all circles as being profound and well written. He was the New York State Poet Laureate from 1987 to 1989. He continued to write and publish as late as 2005, at the age of 100. Many believe his poetry's symbolism is influenced significantly by the work of Carl Jung. Kunitz was an influence on many 20th century poets, including James Wright, Mark Doty, Louise Glück, and Carolyn Kizer.

His third wife, artist Elise Asher, died at the age of 92 at her home in Greenwich Village in 2004.

Kunitz divided his time between New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts, for most of his life. He enjoyed gardening and maintained one of the most impressive seaside gardens in Provincetown. He was a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a mainstay of the literary community, and of Poets House in Manhattan.

He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award in Sherborn, Massachusetts in October 1998.

He died in 2006 at his home in Manhattan. He had previously come close to death, and reflected on the experience in his last book, a collection of essays, The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden.