Stanley Kunitz

“Vita Nuova"

I abdicate my daily self that bled,
As others breathe, for porridge it might sup.
Henceforth apocalypse will get my bread
For me. I bit my tongue and gnawed my lip,
But now the visor of my name is up.

Giving to love my undivided nature,

Kindling my fire, the spirit that I keep,

I have been otherwise a part-time creature,

With many selves to fool myself with hope,

And in myself a gentler self to weep.

Now I will peel that vision from my brain
Of numbers wrangling in a common place
And I will go unburdened on the quiet lane
Of my eternal kind, till shadowless
With inner light I wear my father's face.

Moon of the soul, accompany me now.,
Shine on the colosseums of my sense,
Be in the tabernacles of my brow.
My dark will make reflecting from your stones,
The single beam of all my life intense.

 In this poem, I feel like Kunitz is marking a change in himself and his style as a poet -"vita nuova," literally "new life." Because it is one of his older poems, "Vita Nuova" seems like it is more transitional - it's not as intimidatingly complex as his very early ones, which took some influence from the metaphysical poets, but it also isn't as  grounded (for lack of a better term) as his later works (he would probably say he hadn't quite found his "middle style" yet). 

Giving to love my undivided nature,

Kindling my fire, the spirit that I keep,

I have been otherwise a part-time creature,

With many selves to fool myself with hope,

And in myself a gentler self to weep.

These lines are probably my favorite in the entire poem. They toy with the ideas of 'self' (selves), 'masks' (fake or divided selves), but also seem to signify that he is remaking himself into a new, whole creature, and trying to come to terms with the contradictions that he finds. Contradictions and contrasts (life and death, particularly) show up often in his work.

 Overall, however, this poem is great because he seems to be declaring himself a poet, and recognizing that he is driven to write (and, arguably, to write from his own experiences).

On a side note: we see again the references to his father, the idea of self, and the contrasts between light/dark and life/death (death, in this case, figurative). These help to underscore the idea that he is likely undergoing a transformation of sorts, moving into his more mature style.