The Boston Globe calls Stanley Kunitz “more beloved than honored,” though that’s not quite accurate. Modest in the volume of his writings, Kunitz nonetheless received a considerable number of major awards: the Pulitzer (“Selected Poems”), the Bollingen Prize, the National Medal of the Arts, and the National Book Award (“Passing Through”). Yet even considering his appointment as Poet Laureate of the United States, Kunitz remained relatively unknown to the general public.

Perhaps Kunitz preferred it that way, preferred the admiration of close friends to the blind worship of the crowds. And his friends were considerable; they included W.H. Auden, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, and Allen Ginsberg. In his dozen books, he moved from intellectual, metaphysical poetry to a simpler, starker style that was filled with intimacy and intensity. He wrote of life and death, rebirths, quests, departed fathers, loss, and love.

His father committed suicide 6 weeks before Kunitz’s birth in 1905, and his mother raised her children by opening a dry goods store. A scholarship helped Kunitz attend Harvard, where he graduated summa cum laude in English. His hopes of earning a Ph.D. were dashed when professors told him that the Anglo-Saxon students would resent being taught by a Jew. Undeterred, he earned a living by reporting for newspapers, editing literary reference books, lecturing, and teaching. He wrote poetry late into the night, on a manual typewriter.

The Guardian describes him as a “handsome charmer.” He loved the simple things in life: gardening, grocery shopping, cooking, martinis. His last book, “The Wild Braid,” reflects upon the poet’s connection with his garden through poetry, essays, and photographs.

He also loved love itself: “What makes the engine go?” he asks in “Touch Me,” and answers, “Desire, desire, desire.”

On his own writing, as reported by the Washington Post, he said, “The deepest thing I know is that I am living and dying at once, and my conviction is to report that dialogue. It is a rather terrifying thought that is at the root of much of my poetry.”

Like his favorite William Blake, Kunitz had a profoundly mystical view of poetry. “Poetry is ultimately mythology, the telling of stories of the soul,” the New York Times quoted, “The old myths, the old gods, the old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our minds, waiting for our call.”

The old gods called Kunitz away on May 14, 2006.