SOURCE: “Stanley Kunitz,” in The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets, by Bill Moyers, edited by James Haba, Doubleday, 1995, pp. 239–55.

In the following interview, Kunitz discusses formative events in his life and career, his approach to writing poetry, the origin of several of his poems, and the significance of poetry for the artist and society.

Stanley Kunitz begins his ninetieth year with a new collection of luminous, life-affirming poems. Still wrestling with basic themes—“the world's wrongs and the injustice of time”—and still joyfully rearranging the sounds of language as he does the flowers in his garden, Kunitz has received nearly every honor bestowed upon a poet, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1959 and appointments as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (now called poet laureate) and poet laureate of New York. He was a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Massachusetts...