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Photo Marnie Crawford Samuelson
Poet Stanley Kunitz, soon to be 100, in his Commercial Street garden in a photograph by Marnie Crawford Samuelson that is included in their collaborative book, “The Wild Braid.” |
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Poet Stanley Kunitz still blooming at 100
New book celebrates his life & work in text & photos
By Susan Rand Brown
Banner Correspondent
Tucked into a small slope of land almost hidden from the comings and goings of Commercial Street, the terraced garden that poet Stanley Kunitz has worked for over 40 years seems to pulse toward the bay like waves at moon tide. To Kunitz, the gift of his garden and the cycle of its planting seasons holds the essence of Provincetown, his beloved summer home.
On July 29, Kunitz will be 100 years old. He shares this milestone with the publication of “The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden.” Based on conversations between Kunitz and Genine Lentine, his literary assistant, the reflections, ignited by their mutual love of gardening, make up the core of the book. Color photographs by Marnie Crawford Samuelson, who five years ago began a visual chronicle of Kunitz in his garden, add depth and poignancy. A selection of the poet’s most affecting poems, rooted in the bond of poet and place, are included.
Kunitz wears both his years and his fame — he is a two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and has received countless honors reserved for poets, including the Pulitzer and Bollingen prizes — with the same air of gentle humility that has made him a beloved figure to several generations of writers and artists. With his literary assistant Lentine, herself a poet, close by, Kunitz greets the Banner from his favorite chair in the bright reading nook overlooking the garden, a copy of The New York Times on his lap. Wearing a long-sleeved pink shirt he speaks with an old world, courtly elegance.
He speaks of how special Provincetown has always been for him: Kunitz and his wife, the painter Elise Asher, who died in March 2004, while the book was being written, began coming here on a regular basis in the mid-1950s; their first rental was artist Blanche Lazzell’s beachfront studio. When they bought their house in 1962, the front lawn was a sand dune. In a gravely voice, he says, “I feel very deeply connected to my home here. The sea, and my garden” — he pauses for the right words — “contribute very much. I am happy when I wake up, and I am here.”
In “The Wild Braid,” Kunitz writes of humming sounds “that seem to emanate from the movement of the spheres,” coming to him from Provincetown’s night air. “I hear it very strongly in Provincetown,” he writes, “The night air seems to produce all sorts of secret sounds that simply flow through it and often I’ll get up and walk through the house and say, ‘Where is the sound coming from?’ And it’s not coming from anywhere in particular; it’s a deep pulsing in the universe.”
When “Touch Me,” a romantic poem about desire included in “The Wild Braid,” is brought up, he recites the poem, beginning slowly, in a whisper. His voice gathers strength as he describes listening to the crickets in his garden: “Outdoors all afternoon/ under a gunmetal sky/ staking my garden down/ I kneeled to the crickets trilling/ underfoot as if about/ to burst from their crusty shells …” When he reaches lines that speak of generative force at the core of all life, Kunitz speaks with sudden vigor, “What makes the engine go?/ Desire, desire, desire / The longing for the dance/ stirs in the buried life./ One season only, and it’s done.”
The conversation touches on Shakespeare’s balance of the tragic with the comic, and also the romantic. “Death is a part of life. His greatness as a writer is his awareness of the beauty of existence, the greatness of earth and sea, and of life itself.” Kunitz seems to savor each word as he says: “I feel very fortunate for my existence, and my survival.”
Kunitz ends the conversation praising the collaboration with Lentine and Crawford Samuelson that produced “The Wild Braid.” “I think Genine and I have had a sense of collaboration, of working together through the years. It’s been one of the abiding sources of much that I have done [in this time].” Lentine agrees, calling it a “magical combination,” with Crawford Samuelson “an incredible part of the whole process” — a process that was at several points very uncertain. The poet’s wife died, and then he himself became very ill.
When Lentine first started to interview Kunitz for the book, she sensed it was going to be “about the garden, and the garden in relation to poetry,” she says. Were there any surprises? “Yes, the conversations took us to some places I could not have planned,” she says, referring to the reflections on mortality that came about as the result of the garden talk.
In March 2003, Kunitz was in the Village Nursing Home, not far from his Greenwich Village apartment. In the book, he is described as being “in very fragile condition, moving in and out of consciousness.” Lentine seems to call him back to life by speaking gently of what must be unfolding in the garden at that moment. He emerged transformed, and that summer they were back in Provincetown. The final conversation, “In the garden, Summer of 2004,” is a meditation on what might happen with death.
“The Wild Braid” concludes with Kunitz speaking of poetry, and artwork generally, as a gift, freely given “in acknowledgement of the gift you have been given, which is life itself. … That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.” Crawford Samuelson’s final image shows the poet, leaning on his walking stick, his back to us as he heads home.
A celebration of Stanley Kunitz’s 100th birthday, a book release party and an exhibition of Marnie Crawford Samuelson’s photographs from “The Wild Braid” will take place together in the Hudson D. Walker Gallery of the Fine Arts Work Center, which Kunitz helped to found, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, July 22. The poet is expected to attend. Black-and-white images of Kunitz in his garden, not included in the book, will also be on exhibit. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase at the opening. The exhibit runs through Aug. 9. FAWC is at 24 Pearl St., Provincetown.
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In the Arts
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Jul 21st, 2005