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The ear writes my poems, not the mind.

Stanley Kunitz

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Stanley Kunitz
Age: 100 †
Born: 1905
Born: July 29
Died: 2006
Died: May 14
Linguist
Poet
Translator
Writer
Worcester
Massachusetts
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz
Mind
Writes
Poems
Ears
Writing

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My mother never forgave my father
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In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: Live in the layers, not on the litter. Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.
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Forward my mail to Mars.
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In every house of marriage there's room for an interpreter.
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Certainly the modern poets I cherish most are disturbing spirits they do not come to coo.
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We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection.
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I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray.
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Poetry is language surprised in the act of changing into meaning.
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Darling, do you remember the man you married? Touch me, remind me who I am.
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We have to learn how to live with our frailties. The best people I know are inadequate and unashamed.
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Poetry is ultimately mythology, the telling of stories of the soul. The old myths, the old gods, the old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our minds, waiting for our call. We have need of them, for in their sum they epitomize the wisdom and experience of the race.
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I dance/for the joy of surviving, at the edge of the road.
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Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms.
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...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.
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Poetry today is easier to write but harder to remember.
Stanley Kunitz
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To conquer a piece of earth and make it as beautiful as one can dream of it being: That is art, too. A man cannot be separated from the earth. I come out of the garden every day feeling, oh, inspired in a way that one needs in order to convert the daily-ness of the life into something greater than that little life itself.
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The first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems.
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It is my heart that's late, it is my song that's flown.
Stanley Kunitz
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A poem has secrets that the poet knows nothing of.
Stanley Kunitz
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I like an ending that's both a door and a window.
Stanley Kunitz