stanley kunitz

• 1905 yılında doğmuş ve 2006 yılında ölmüş amerikalı şair. hayatınin ilk yılları aile trajedileriyle doludur. "şair şiirlerini öfkesinden çıkarır yazar" demiştir.
  
  the quarrel
  the word i spoke in anger
  weighs less than a parsley seed,
  but a road runs through it
  that leads to my grave,
  that bought-and-paid-for lot
  on a salt-sprayed hill in truro
  where the scrub pines
  overlook the bay.
  half-way i'm dead enough,
  strayed from my own nature
  and my fierce hold on life.
  if i could cry, i'd cry,
  but i'm too old to be
  anybody's child.
  liebchen,
  with whom should i quarrel
  except in the hiss of love,
  that harsh, irregular flame?
  
  (bkz: father and son)
  (bkz: the snakes of september)
• "stanley kunitz en iyi üç ya da dört şiirinde çok çok daha iyi. stanley ford vakfı'ndan iki yıl süresince her nerede her ne isterse yazabilsin diye 15.000 dolar alıyor. bizse guggenheim'dan hiçbir şey duymadık." sylvia plath - the journals of sylvia plath
  
  (bkz: richard wilbur)
• şu şiiriyle beni şoklara uğratmış ve en sonunda da "64 yıldır yanağım hala yanıyor" demesiyle hüzne boğmuş kişi.
  
  "my mother never forgave my father
  for killing himself,
  especially at such an awkward time
  and in a public park,
  that spring
  when i was waiting to be born.
  she locked his name
  in her deepest cabinet
  and would not let him out,
  though i could hear him thumping.
  when i came down from the attic
  with the pastel portrait in my hand
  of a long-lipped stranger
  with a brave moustache
  and deep brown level eyes,
  she ripped it into shreds
  without a single word
  and slapped me hard.
  in my sixty-fourth year
  i can feel my cheek
  still burning."