Stanley Kunitz (7/29/1905 – 5/14/2006) was an American poet who was born in Worcester, MA to Jewish Russian-Lithuanians. His father’s death by suicide six weeks after his birth would be a driving force in Kunitz’ life. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard with a degree in English and philosophy and then earned a master’s degree in English from Harvard. After graduating, Kunitz worked as a reporter for The Worcester Telegram and as an editor for the H. W. Wilson Company. He then founded and edited Wilson Library Bulletin and started the Author Biographical Studies and served as co-editor for Twentieth Century Authors. His poems appeared in Poetry, Commonwealth, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Dial and won him awards such as the New York State Poet Laureate and the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award. Kunitz also taught at State University of New York at Potsdam, the New School for Social Research, the University of Washington, Queens College, Brandeis University, Columbia University, Yale University, Rutgers University–Camden, Vassar College, and Princeton University.
Stanley Kunitz
Studios
Sprague-Smith
Stanley Kunitz worked in the Sprague-Smith studio.
In January of 1976, the original Sprague-Smith Studio — built in 1915–1916 and funded by music students of Mrs. Charles Sprague-Smith of the Veltin School — was destroyed by fire. Redesigned by William Gnade, Sr., a Peterborough builder, the fieldstone structure was rebuilt the same year from the foundation up, reusing the original fieldstone. A few…