Since the late 1920s Stanley Kunitz has consistently gone his own way. Meticulous in the craft of poetry, he has published his writings sparingly and seems to have been unaffected by the work of other poets. Though, as T.S. Eliot observed, "art never improves," an individual artist can improve and often does, and Kunitz's poems of the 1970s and 1980s are possibly better than, and certainly as good as, those of earlier decades. Most of his poems are exquisitely finished in both diction and form and are often profound in probing life's pain. He has a few nearly perfect poems--intense, passionate, and universal--and a further body of good poems to ensure his reputation. His one prose book and his translations from Russian round out a long, busy life that has been single-mindedly dedicated to poetry.

Though Kunitz's poetry is distinguished and has been recognized as such by...