[Stanley Kunitz is] forthright in facing and communicating the hopes and hazards of man's right knowledge [in The Poems of Stanley Kunitz, 1928–1978]. "A poet," he tells us, "needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him," seeking his "darkest Africa." The pursuit of dangerous places takes Kunitz through several poetic incarnations. His verses go from dense and highly figured to almost transparently clear. The Platonic abstractions of a young man experiencing mostly Intellectual Things—as Kunitz aptly titled his first volume—mature into poems firmly fastened to the realities of our day. Kunitz relies increasingly on a mix of memory and immediate observation to trigger his poetic discoveries. He perceives universals in minute particulars, and his loving attention to detail is telling….

The verses can seem relentlessly grim…. Yet Kunitz offers "Signs and Portents" of both pain and possibility. Throughout the volume we explore with him the depths of...