This summer will see the celebration of a poet’s centennial “that will actually include the guest of honor” — Stanley Kunitz. As Hillel Italie notes in an in-depth profile for the Associated Press, celebrations of the life and career of the former Poet Laureate and Pulitzer winner “are scheduled in New York and Provincetown, Mass., his longtime homes, with Galway Kinnell and Gerald Stern among the poets expected.” Reports Italie, “Life remains a blessing, but he mourns his late wife, artist Elise Asher, who died last year, and misses other friends who have gone. He doesn’t fear death, but also doesn’t console himself with hope for the afterlife. The world right here is destination enough.” Kunitz’s most recent book is the just-released The Wild Braid. “My feeling has been that I really love this life and that I’d like to hang on,” he tells Italie. “I know that it’s not my choice, so I simply do the best I can with this self, which is quite frail at the moment but is still at my command.”