Passing Through The Later Poems, New and Selected

by Kunitz, Stanley

• ISBN13: 9780393316155
• ISBN10: 0393316157
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-05-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Stanley Kunitz, one of the masters of contemporary poetry, presents his ninth collection, gathering a rich selection of his work, including new poems that remind us of his prefatory statement: "Art is the chalice into which we pour the wine of transcendence." Nearly all the poems of Kunitz's later years, beginning with The Testing-Tree (1971), are included, and most of the poems in Passing Through are unavailable in any other edition. In "Touch Me," the last poem in the collection, Kunitz propounds a question, "What makes the engine go?" and gives us his answer: "Desire, desire, desire." These poems fairly hum with the energy, the excitement, the ardor, that make Kunitz one of our most enduring and highly honored poets. In the words of Carolyn Forché, "he is a living treasure."

Table of Contents

Instead of a Foreword	p. 11
Journal for My Daughter	p. 15
An Old Cracked Tune	p. 21
The Portrait	p. 22
The Magic Curtain	p. 23
After the Last Dynasty	p. 27
The Illumination	p. 29
Robin Redbreast	p. 31
River Road	p. 33
Summer Solstice (Mandelstam)	p. 35
Tristia (Mandelstam)	p. 36
The Mound Builders	p. 38
The Customs Collector's Report	p. 42
The Gladiators	p. 45
The System	p. 47
Around Pastor Bonhoeffer	p. 48
Bolsheviks (Stolzenberg)	p. 51
Three Floors	p. 52
The Flight of Apollo	p. 53
King of the River	p. 54
The Mulch	p. 57
Indian Summer at Land's End	p. 58
Cleopatra (Akhmatova)	p. 59
Dante (Akhmatova)	p. 60
Boris Pasternak (Akhmatova)	p. 61
The Artist	p. 63
The Testing-Tree	p. 64
The Game	p. 69
The Knot	p. 73
What of the Night?	p. 74
Quinnapoxet	p. 76
Words for the Unknown Makers	p. 78
The Catch	p. 85
The Crystal Cage	p. 86
Signs and Portents	p. 88
Firesticks	p. 92
The Lincoln Relics	p. 93
Meditations on Death (Ungaretti)	p. 98
The Quarrel	p. 102
The Unquiet Ones	p. 103
My Sisters	p. 104
Route Six	p. 105
The Layers	p. 107
The Snakes of September	p. 111
The Abduction	p. 113
Raccoon Journal	p. 115
The Old Darned Man	p. 119
The Scene	p. 121
The Image-Maker	p. 122
Lamplighter: 1914	p. 123
Day of Foreboding	p. 125
Three Small Parables for My Poet Friends	p. 126
The Round	p. 128
Passing Through	p. 130
The Long Boat	p. 132
The Wellfleet Whale	p. 133
My Mother's Pears	p. 141
Chariot	p. 143
In the Dark House	p. 145
Halley's Comet	p. 148
Hornworm: Summer Reverie	p. 150
Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation	p. 151
The Sea, That Has No Ending...	p. 153
Proteus	p. 156
Touch Me	p. 158
Notes	p. 161
Acknowledgments	p. 171
Index	p. 173
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.