SOURCE: “An Interview with Stanley Kunitz,” in Gettysburg Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, Spring, 1992, pp. 193–209.

In the following interview, conducted in 1990, Kunitz discusses his early life, formative experiences, education, beginnings as a poet, literary relationships, and his approach to writing and experiencing poetry.

Stanley Kunitz, who will turn eighty-seven on July 29, 1992, is the reigning dean of American poets. Not only is he still writing, but he is writing as well today as he ever has, as is evident from the new poem, “Chariot,” published below. The third child of Solomon Z. Kunitz and Yetta Helen Jasspon, Stanley Kunitz was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. He earned his B.A. from Harvard in 1926 and his M.A. in 1927; at his first graduation, he won the coveted Lloyd McKim Garrison Medal for Poetry, was awarded highest honors, and was elected Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation, Kunitz worked briefly for the Worcester...