Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Kunitz, Stanley (Vol. 148) - John Taylor (review date February 1997)

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John Taylor (review date February 1997)

SOURCE: “Short Reviews,” in Poetry, Vol. CLXIX, No. 4, February, 1997, pp. 291–93.

[In the following review, Taylor offers a positive assessment of Passing Through.]

This selection displays once again Stanley Kunitz's remarkable range and subtlety. Adding nine recent poems to work originally printed in The Testing-Tree (1971), Next-to-Last Things (1985) and “The Layers” (which appeared in the acclaimed 1979 edition of his collected poetry), Kunitz passes from retrospective appraisals of personal tragedy (“My mother never forgave my father / for killing himself … that spring / when I was waiting to be born”) to haunting metaphysical allegories, such as his anthropomorphic portrayal, in “King of the River,” of a salmon almost consciously longing for metamorphosis and transcendence. Connecting many of these otherwise disparate poems are compelling themes of innocence...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Stanley Kunitz with Cynthia Davis (interview date 1972)
   2. Robert Weisberg (essay date Spring 1975)
   3. Andrew Motion (review date 2 November 1979)
   4. Vernon Young (review date 22 November 1979)
   5. Alan Brownjohn (review date April 1980)
   6. Peter Stitt (review date September 1980)
   7. Cynthia A. Davis (essay date Spring 1981)
   8. Gregory Orr (essay date 1985)
   9. James Idema (review date 22 December 1985)
   10. Thomas D'Evelyn (essay date 6 March 1987)
   11. Elizabeth Kastor (essay date 12 May 1987)
   12. Calvin Bedient (review date Winter 1988)
   13. Stanley Kunitz with Peter Stitt (interview date 1990)
   14. Michael Ryan (essay date 1993)
   15. Susan Mitchell (essay date 1993)
   16. Phoebe Pettingell (review date 9–23 October 1995)
   17. A. V. Christie (review date 31 December 1995)
   18. Stanley Kunitz with Bill Moyers (interview date 1995)
   19. David Yezzi (review date 1996)
   20. Judith Kitchen (review date Summer 1996)
   21. John Taylor (review date February 1997)
   22. Stanley Kunitz with Gary Pacernick (interview date Fall 1997)
   23. Fred Moramarco and William Sullivan (essay date 1998)
   24. Linton Weeks (essay date 29 July 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright