Maxine Kumin (June 6, 1925 – February 6, 2014) was an American poet and author. She was appointed
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981–1982.
Biography
Early years
Maxine Kumin was born Maxine Winokur on June 6, 1925 in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, the daughter of Jewish parents, and attended a Catholic kindergarten and primary school. She received her B.A. in 1946 and her M.A. in 1948 from
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...
of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
. In June 1946 she married Victor Kumin, a Harvard graduate and engineering consultant; they had three children, two daughters and a son. In 1957, she studied poetry with John Holmes at the Boston Center for Adult Education. There she met
Anne Sexton, with whom she started a friendship that continued until Sexton's suicide in 1974. Kumin taught English from 1958 to 1961 and 1965 to 1968 at
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...
; from 1961 to 1963 she was a scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study. She also held appointments as a visiting lecturer and poet in residence at many American colleges and universities. From 1976 until her death in February 2014, she and her husband lived on a farm in
Warner,
New Hampshire
New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, where they bred
Arabian
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
and
quarter horses
The American Quarter Horse, or Quarter Horse, is an American breed of horse that excels at sprinting short distances. Its name is derived from its ability to outrun other horse breeds in races of or less; some have been clocked at speeds up to . ...
.
Career
Kumin's many awards include the
Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize for Poetry (1972), the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award came five years after the first Pulitzers were awarded in other categories; Joseph Pulitzer's will had not ment ...
(1973) for ''Up Country'', in 1995 the
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the 1994
Poets' Prize
The Poets' Prize is awarded annually for the best book of verse published by a living American poet two years prior to the award year. The $3000 annual prize is donated by a committee of about 20 American poets, who each nominate two books and who ...
(for ''Looking for Luck''), an
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqua ...
Award for excellence in literature (1980), an
Academy of American Poets fellowship (1986), the 1999
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation, which also publishes ''Poetry'' magazine. The prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. It honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordin ...
, and six honorary degrees. In 1979, the
Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Kumin's name and picture. She was also awarded the
Sarah Joseph Hale Award and the
Levinson Prize. She has also received a
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
grant and fellowships from the
Academy of American Poets. In 1981–1982, she served as the poetry consultant to the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
. Kumin has been published in
Beloit Poetry Journal.
Critics have compared Kumin with
Elizabeth Bishop because of her meticulous observations and with
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
, for she frequently devotes her attention to the rhythms of life in rural
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
. She has been grouped with
confessional poets such as
Anne Sexton,
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for '' The Colossus and Other Poems'' (1960), '' Ariel'' (1965), a ...
and
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...
. But unlike the confessionalists, Kumin eschews high rhetoric and adopts a plain style. Throughout her career, Kumin has struck a balance between her sense of life's transience and her fascination with the dense physical presence of the world around her. She served as the 1985 judge of the
Brittingham Prize in Poetry and she selected
Patricia Dobler's ''Talking To Strangers''.
She taught poetry in New England College's Low-Residency MFA Program. She was also a contributing editor at ''
The Alaska Quarterly Review''. Together with fellow-poet
Carolyn Kizer, she first served on and then resigned from the board of chancellors of the
Academy of American Poets, an act that galvanized the movement for opening this august body to broader representation by women and minorities.
In 1998 when Kumin was 73 she was almost killed in a horseback-riding accident which broke her neck.
Kumin, aged 88, died in February 2014 at her home in Warner, following a year of failing health.
["Poet Maxine Kumin Dies at 88"]
February 7, 2014, ABC News
Kumin is believed to be the last person to have seen
Anne Sexton alive, as the two of them had had lunch the day of Sexton's suicide in 1974.
Bibliography
Poetry
Collections
*
*''The Privilege'', Harper & Row, 1965
*''The Nightmare Factory'', Harper & Row, 1970,
*''The Abduction'', Harper & Row, 1971,
*''Up Country'', Harper & Row, 1972 (illustrated by
Barbara Swan)
*''House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate'', Viking/Penguin, 1975,
*''The Retrieval System'', Viking/Penguin, 1978,
*''Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief, New and Selected Poems'', Viking/Penguin 1982,
*''The Long Approach'', Viking/Penguin, 1985–6,
*''Nurture'', Viking/Penguin 1989,
*''Looking for Luck'', W. W. Norton, 1992,
*''Connecting the Dots'', W. W. Norton, 1996,
*''Selected Poems 1960–1990'', W. W. Norton, 1997, , cloth; paper; ''New York Times'' notable book of the year
* cloth, paper; finalist for the Lenore Marshall Award of the Academy of American Poets, 2002
*''Bringing Together: Uncollected Early Poems 1958–1988'', W. W. Norton, 2003,
*''Jack and Other New Poems'', W. W. Norton, 2005,
*
*
*''And Short the Season'', W. W. Norton, 2014,
List of poems
Novels
*''Through Dooms of Love'',
Harper & Row
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...
, 1965; Hamish Hamilton & Gollancz (England), Panther paper
*''The Passions of Uxport'', Harper & Row, 1968, Dell paper, 1969
*''The Abduction'', Harper & Row, 1971
*''The Designated Heir'', Viking, 1974; Andre Deutsch (England)
*''Quit Monks or Die'' (animal rights mystery), Story Line Press, 1999,
Essays and short story collections
*''To Make a Prairie: Essays on Poets, Poetry and Country Living'', University of Michigan Press, 1980 paper
*''Why Can't We Live Together Like Civilized Human Beings?'' Viking 1982
*''In Deep: Country Essays'', Viking 1987, ; Beacon Press 1988
*''Women, Animals, and Vegetables: Essays and Stories'', Norton, 1994; Ontario Review Press, paper, 1996
*''Telling the Barn Swallow: Poets on the Poetry of Maxine Kumin'', ed. by Emily Grosholz, University Press of New England, 1997
*''Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry'',
Copper Canyon Press, 2000,
*
*
Children's books
* 1961 ''Follow the Fall'' (Illustrated by Artur Marokvia)
* 1961 ''Spring Things'' (Illustrated by Artur Marokvia)
* 1961 ''Summer Story'' (Illustrated by Artur Marokvia)
* 1961 ''A Winter Friend'' (Illustrated by Artur Marokvia)
* 1962 ''Mittens in May'',
Putnam (Illustrated by
Elliott Gilbert)
* 1964 ''Sebastian and the Dragon'' (Illustrated by William D. Hayes)
* 1964 ''Speedy Digs Downside Up'' (Illustrated by
Ezra Jack Keats)
* 1967 ''
Faraway Farm'' (Illustrated by
Kurt Werth)
* 1969 ''When Grandmother Was Young'' (Illustrated by
Don Almquist)
* 1971 ''When Great-Grandmother Was Young'' (Illustrated by
Don Almquist)
* 1984 ''
The Microscope'' (Illustrated by
Arnold Lobel),
Harper & Row
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...
, 1984,
* 2006 ''Mites to Mastodons'' (Illustrated by Pam Zagarenski)
*
* 2011 ''Oh, Harry!''
(Illustrated by
Barry Moser)
;co-written with
Anne Sexton
*1963 ''Eggs of Things'' (Illustrated by Leonard Shortall),
Scholastic Book Services
*1964 ''More Eggs of Things'' (Illustrated by Leonard Shortall)
*1974 ''Joey and the Birthday Present'' (Illustrated by
Evaline Ness)
*1975 ''The Wizard's Tears'' (Illustrated by
Evaline Ness)
Memoirs
*''The Pawnbroker's Daughter'',
W. W. Norton
W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly '' The Norton ...
, July 2015,
References
External links
*
''Encyclopædia Britannica''profile
Kumin profileat the Poetry Foundation
Kumin's Academy Of American Poets' pageKumin profile and poems written and audio Poetry Archive
Maxine Kumin: a reading from the 2010 Key West Literary Seminar (15:45)''Maxine Kumin's Official Web Site''Maxine Kumin and Wesley McNair Poemsread by the authors in a 75-minute video from the U.S. Library of Congress.
* Audio
Maxine Kumin reads "Looking Back in my Eighty-First Year"from the book ''Still to mow'' (vi
poemsoutloud.net
*
Maxine Kumin Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kumin, Maxine
1925 births
2014 deaths
American children's writers
American women novelists
American women poets
American poets laureate
Jewish American novelists
Jewish American poets
Jewish women writers
People from Warner, New Hampshire
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
Radcliffe College alumni
Tufts University faculty
Poets from New Hampshire
Poets laureate of New Hampshire
Writers from Philadelphia
20th-century American novelists
American women children's writers
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American poets
The New Yorker people
Novelists from Pennsylvania
Novelists from Massachusetts
American women academics
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American women