October 30, 2009
Stanley Kunitz/Stockmal Collection comes to Clark
Personal gift is fruit of city couple's sweet friendship with poet
Pictured: Clark Provost David Angel with Carol Stockmal
Clark University was presented with the Stanley Kunitz/Stockmal Collection, a gift from the personal collection of Carol Stockmal and her late husband Gregory Stockmal, during a ceremony on Oct. 22, at 4 Woodford Street, in Worcester. The collection includes 20 years of correspondence between the couple and national Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize recipient Stanley Kunitz, who died in 2006 at age 100.
Kunitz once lived in the stately home the Stockmals bought in 1979. In 1985, the poet sought out his childhood home and was welcomed by the Stockmals. A long friendship began. Kunitz dedicated his poem "My Mother's Pears" to the Stockmals, who for years sent him pears from the tree he and his mother planted on the property. Two of the more highly valued items in the collection are a signed manuscript of "My Mothers Pears" and a postcard expressing thanks for the pears. The Bartlett pear tree still lives on the property.
Clark officials who attended the presentation included Provost David Angel, Gwendolynne Arthur, University Librarian, Fordyce Williams, Coordinator of Archives and Special Collections, and Daniel Petrocelli, Director of Planned Giving, University Advancement.
Clark will hold the collection, appraised at more than $30,000, in the Goddard Library's Archives and Special Collections department, making it accessible to researchers including Worcester County Poetry Association members. "It's wonderful for future scholars and anyone who wants to know the private side of Stanley Kunitz," Stockmal told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
To read more and to view a slideshow of the Woodford Street home, along with audio of Kunitz reading "My Mother's Pears," click here.