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Maxine Kumin
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Maxine Kumin is the author of twelve books of poetry, four novels, a book of short stories, three essay anthologies, and a number of children's books. She has received numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize, the Poets' Prize, the Levinson Prize, and, most recently, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. She lives and writes in New Hampshire. |
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In these new poems, her eleventh collection, Maxine Kumin expands on the themes that have engaged her most strongly. Family connections resurface as she imagines a letter to her mother, long dead, or assesses the shift of responsibility between generations ("...they still love us who overtake us"). Her dialogue with the natural world - especially with the narrow divide between human and animal - continues, most notably in "Deja Vu," where she pays homage to her personal totem, the bear. Change and the things that never change attract Kumin's attention equally. Whether chronicling the bounty of summer, the cycle of seasons, or memories of youthful parties and lost friends, her voice is wise, clear, and compelling.
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Gathered from nine collections representing three decades of work, these poems--newly available in a rich and varied volume celebrate the growth of a major artist. Since the publication of her first book of poetry, Halfway, Maxine Kumin has been powerfully and fruitfully engaged in the "stuff of life that matters": family, friendship, the bond between the human and natural world, and the themes of loss and survival.
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| Inside the Halo & Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery |
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Maxine Kumin
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From a celebrated poet and horsewoman, the journal of her astonishing recovery after a nearly fatal accident.
In July 1998, Maxine Kumin suffered a terrible accident when her horse bolted at a carriage-driving clinic. Ninety-five percent of such victims die before reaching the emergency room. Of those who do survive, ninety-five percent are paralyzed for life. But Kumin, less than a year later, was pronounced "a miracle." This is the journal of her astonishing recovery. Though at first words threatened to elude her, writing (at first by dictating) became a way of maintaining her sanity. Kumin tells of her time "inside the halo," the near-medieval device that kept her head immobile during the weeks of intensive care and rehabilitation. During the long evenings she gets hooked on the Red Sox, muses on the state of the world, and forms lasting "rehab" friendships. She salutes the loving family who always believed she would heal and who "kept the garden going as a way of keeping me going." Maxine Kumin is the kind of person about whom it is said "they don't make them like that any more." She swerves from despair to hope to unshakable determination as this harrowing yet heartwarming story of a fighter and survivor unfolds.
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Nearly twenty years ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin transplanted her urban family to an overgrown New Hampshire farm. Her latest prose work, a graceful and appealing blend of ten essays and eight stories, grew from the exertions and exhilarations of country living. Now a consummate horsewoman, Kumin here revels in the long-awaited birth of a foal; the rehabilitation of an abused mare; and such daily pleasures as the antics of Rilke, "the Poet's Dog," and the tactile beauty of home-grown vegetables. Kumin also muses on the process of writing, as inspired by the natural rhythms of farm life. Her stories, always underscored by a profound attachment to the natural world, focus subtly on personal relationships--as between a young naturalist and her widowed father; or a love affair between a hunter and a radical environmentalist. Full of anecdote and advice, love and grief, these pieces showcase one of our most versatile and deeply passionate writers.
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| Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry |
| Paperback |
Maxine Kumin
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In her essays, as with her Pultizer Prize-winning poetry, Maxine Kumin speaks to "the encounter": with poetry, poets, and the details of country life. In clear, direct prose she is equally at ease musing over her garden or discussing poetic form, raising horses or critiquing the work of other poets. For Kumin, poetry is inseparable from daily life.
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The story is set in Montandino, an imaginary town in the Southwest. The Latino chief of police is the most powerful figure in the town, which houses little besides the Graysmith Research Laboratory and the Hammerling Engineering School. During the search for a missing research monkey, the police chief finds the body of the lab director in a pit used for maternal deprivation experiments. The director's young graduate assistant is found murdered a few days later. Is there a connection between these two deaths? Matters are complicated by The Mercy Bandits, animal rights terrorists modeled after The Band of Mercy, a 19th century group which rescued cart horses in London from abusive drivers.
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