Word: kunitz
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Selected and translated by STANLEY KUNITZ with MAX HAYWARD...
Born into a comfortable family, Akhmatova was basically unprepared for the life before her. This cruel age has deflected me,/ like a river from its course, she wrote. Yet, as indicated by this Russian-English selection of her poetry, translated and commented on by Stanley Kunitz and Critic Max Hayward, Akhmatova's life probably never would have run smoothly. Although the original music is lost even in the best translation, enough of her emotional tones come through this excellent Englishing to suggest a tough individualist whose highly economical style was due not to reticence but a stubborn belief that...
...enthusiastic and perceptive introduction to the book, Stanley Kunitz properly recommends that the poems be read through all in a single sitting. The growth of Casey's insights, one upon the other, the recurring juxtaposition of human comedy and absurdist tragedy, and the escalating force of Casey's convincing verse can best be appreciated when he work is taken in as a whole. Amidst what would seem to be his verbatim transcription of his portion of the war, the poet's moments of reflection are neither disruptive nor pompous, but as frugal, honest and ironic as his descriptive poetry. Somewhat...
...THEN, amidst all this panoramic pandemonium, Stanley Kunitz appeared like a revelation. Revelation? Perhaps his coming was more like the salvation of the American poetic sensibility. He, like some of the other American poets who followed him, had translated Yevtushenko's poems in Stolen Apples. Since most of the translators do not read Russian, they were evidently given literal translations to adapt, according to their own styles, into English. "The result--these English adaptations--" writes Anthony Kahn in his translator's preface to the book, "are interchanges between one poet and another." Accordingly, I suppose, Kunitz and the other American...
...Stanley Kunitz, one of the finest lyric poets of our time, introduced himself quietly as if to establish not only his own identity but his separateness. First he read one of his own poems. "The Illumination," and immediately I was aware of the music of poetry, a music not heard all evening. Kunitz appeared very relaxed as he switched microphones to read one of his "translation adaptations" of Yevtushenko, "An Attempt at Blasphemy." The poem, he explained before reading it, "has more of a witty, metaphysical turn than most of Yevtushenko's poems." The angelic choir crooned in with race...