"I had a professor and I took a composition course with him. His assignment each day was a one-page piece of any sort and I sent him every day a prose piece," Kunitz said. "He wrote on one of them you sound like a poet, why don't you write poetry?"

Kunitz said he has admired many poets over the years, including John Dunne, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

In turn, Kunitz has been an tremendous teacher to modern poets, said Assistant Professor of English Oren Izenberg '91, who studies 20th century American poetry.

"I don't know if you can count the number of poets who have learned from him," he said.

Izenberg described Kunitz's work as a mix of two very different types of poetry.

"He tries to combine the kind of subjective depth of confessional poetry with a kind of intellectual rigor which we associate with a less personal poetry," he said.

Despite his age, Izenberg said that Kunitz is a "natural choice."

"In terms of being able to set an example and demonstrate a lifelong commitment to poetry, I think he's a great example," Izenberg said.