Intellectual Things

by Stanley Kunitz

The first collection of poems by Stanley Kunitz, later poet laureate of the United States of America.

Genres: Poetry

63 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Stanley Jasspon Kunitz was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.

Reviews

[Luke]

THE WORDS OF THE PREACHER

Taking infection from the vulgar air
And sick with the extravagant disease
Of hfe, my soul rejected the sweet snare
Of happiness; declined
That democratic bait, set in the world
By fortune's old and mediocre mind.

To love a changing shape with perfect faith
Is waste of faith; to follow dying things
With deathless hope is vain; to go from breath
To breath, so to be fed
And put to sleep, is cheat and shame — because
By piecemeal living a man is doomed, I said.

For time with clever fmgers ties the knot
Of life that is extended like a rope.
And bundling up the spinning of our thought
(The ribbons and the lace
That might have made a garment for the wind),
Constricts our substance to a cipher's space.

Into the middle of my thought I crept
And on the bosom of the angel lay.
Lived all my life at once; and oh I wept
At what I could foresee;
Upon his death-soft burning plumage wept
To vie with God for His eternity.



The Lesson

Observe the wisdom of the Florentine
Who, feeling death upon him, scribbled fast
To make revision of a deathbed scene,
Gloating that he was accurate at last.
Let sons learn from their Hpless fathers how
Man enters hell without a golden bough.

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kunitz' early poems get a bad rap. This first volume has some strong pieces ("Change," "Deciduous Branch," "The Words of the Preacher"), though I do think it is stronger in the front half. Perhaps this is because Kunitz' early style generally lacks arresting lines. In keeping with the title, these are carefully spun conceptual poems, at times Blakean and at times Metaphysical.

[Prisoner 071053 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavy Blakean influence and rather like Dylan Thomas without that sense of madness in the vision of either. Obsession with the relation of soul and body throughout the collection. Strong formal skills, subtle rhyme and assonance, as well as a rare ability to use couplets so as not to render the verbal equivalent of riding a seesaw.