Stanley Kunitz-100 years of Poetry and Courage

Poet Stanley Kunitz, born in 1905 , celebrates 100 years of poetry and courage this year. I think that the ideal of intellectual freedom in libraries owes a great deal to concepts developed in Kunitz' column, "The Roving Eye," which appeared in the Wilson Library Bulletin from 1928-1943. All his life Kunitz has cherished democracy but not intolerance, intellectual provincialism or the kind of patriotism that supports merchants of death.

In 1998 Stanley Kunitz received the Courage of Conscience Award from Peace Abbey.

In the prologue to the Peace Abbey film, Stonewalk, Kunitz asked the question:

"To whom can one pledge his allegiance except to the victims?"

Honors to Kunitz include: Poet Laureate of the United States , 2000; National Book Award, 1995, for Passing Through: Later Poems, New and Selected; New York State Poet -1987-1989; Bollingen Prize in Poetry, Yale University Library, 1987; American Library Association notable book citation, 1979, for The Poems of Stanley Kunitz, 1928-1978; Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1959 for Selected Poems 1928-1958; Levinson Prize, Poetry magazine, 1956.

Book:
Louise S. Robbins
Censorship and the American Library: The American Library Association's Response to Threats to Intellectual freedom: 1939-1969.
Westport, Greenwood Press, 1996.

Stanley Kunitz was born July 29, 1905.