At the age of 95, Stanley Kunitz (born 1905) became the oldest person ever to serve as Poet Laureate of the United States. One of the finest American poets of the Twentieth Century, Kunitz produced only 12 books in more than 70 years, but the quality of his work remained consistent. Kunitz has earned many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and Bollingen Prize in Poetry.Haunted by his Father's Death

Stanley Jasspon Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on July 29, 1905. He was raised in a Lithuanian Jewish household in a working-class community, the son of Solomon Kunitz, a dressmaker, and Yetta Helen (Jasspon) Kunitz. His father killed himself shortly before Stanley was born "by drinking carbolic acid in a park," according to People magazine's William Plummer. Kunitz spent a lonely childhood. Birthdays were not celebrated in his house and his father's death was a taboo topic. Nevertheless, the tragic...