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, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, 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 liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

. In June 1946 she married Victor Kumin, an 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 Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...

. There she met

Anne Sexton Anne Sexton (born Anne Gray Harvey; November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) was an American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book '' Live or Die''. Her poetry details ...

, 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 on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

; 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 Warner can refer to: People * Warner (writer) * Warner (given name) * Warner (surname) Fictional characters * Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner, stars of the animated television series ''Animaniacs'' * Aaron Warner, a character in ''Shatter Me s ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by 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 and quarter horses.

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. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...

(1973) for ''Up Country'', in 1995 the

Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry The Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry is an annual prize, administered by the ''Sewanee Review'' and the University of the South, awarded to a writer who has had a substantial and distinguished career. It was established through a bequ ...

, 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 headq ...

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 extraordina ...

, and six honorary degrees. In 1979, the

Supersisters ''Supersisters'' was a set of 72 trading cards produced and distributed in the United States in 1979 by Supersisters, Inc. They featured famous women from politics, media and entertainment, culture, sports, and other areas of achievement. The ca ...

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 ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. 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 federal ...

grant and fellowships from the

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

. In 1981–1982, she served as the poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. Kumin has been published in

Beloit Poetry Journal The ''Beloit Poetry Journal'' is an American poetry magazine established in 1950 at Beloit College.Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American people, American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the N ...

because of her meticulous observations and with

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...

, for she frequently devotes her attention to the rhythms of life in rural

New England New England is a region comprising 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 to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. She has been grouped with confessional poets such as

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The ...

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 i ...

. 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 The Brittingham Prize in Poetry is a major United States literary award for a book of poetry chosen from an open competition. The prize, established in 1985, is sponsored by the English Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is ...

and she selected

Patricia Dobler Patricia Dobler (June 18, 1939 – July 24, 2004) was an American poet and winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry. Life Patricia Averdick was born in Middletown, Ohio on June 18, 1939, and completed her BA in political science at St. Xa ...

'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 ''The Alaska Quarterly Review'' is a biannual literary journal founded in 1980 by Ronald Spatz and James Liszka at the University of Alaska Anchorage and continued unaffiliated in 2020.July 1, 2020 University of Alaska Anchorage ended its financi ...

''. Together with fellow-poet

Carolyn Kizer Carolyn Ashley Kizer (December 10, 1925 – October 9, 2014) was an American poet of the Pacific Northwest whose works reflect her feminism. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985. According to an article at the Center for the Study of the Pacific ...

, she first served on and then resigned from the board of chancellors of the

, an act that galvanized the movement for opening this august body to broader representation by women and minorities. 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

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 Barbara Swan (1922–2003), also known by her married name, Barbara Swan Fink, was an American painter, illustrator, and lithographer. Her early work is associated with the Boston Expressionist school; later she became known for her still-l ...

) *''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, 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 Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington. Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...

, 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'' (Illustrated by Elliott Gilbert) * 1964 '' Sebastian and the Dragon'' (Illustrated by William D. Hayes) * 1964 '' Speedy Digs Downside Up'' (Illustrated by

Ezra Jack Keats Ezra Jack Keats (né Jacob Ezra Katz; March 11, 1916 – May 6, 1983) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the 1963 Caldecott Medal for illustrating '' The Snowy Day'', which he also wrote. Keats wrote '' A Letter ...

) * 1967 ''

Faraway Farm Faraway Farm, also known as the Daniel Ropp House, is a historic home located near Martinsburg, Berkeley County, West Virginia. It was built about 1865 and is a two-story, "L"-shaped brick dwelling. It is five bays wide and the ell is four bays ...

'' (Illustrated by Kurt Werth) * 1969 '' When Grandmother Was Young'' (Illustrated by Don Almquist) * 1971 ''

When Great-Grandmother Was Young When may refer to: * When?, one of the Five Ws, questions used in journalism * WHEN (AM), an Urban Adult Contemporary radio station in Syracuse, New York * WHEN-TV, the former call letters of TV station WTVH in Syracuse, New York Music * When (b ...

'' (Illustrated by Don Almquist) * 1984 '' The Microscope'' (Illustrated by

Arnold Lobel Arnold Stark Lobel (May 22, 1933 – December 4, 1987) was an American author of children's books, including the '' Frog and Toad'' series and '' Mouse Soup''. He wrote and illustrated these picture books as well as ''Fables'', a 1981 Caldecott M ...

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

, 1984, * 2006 ''

Mites to Mastodons Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear evid ...

'' (Illustrated by Pam Zagarenski) * * 2011 '' Oh, Harry!'' (Illustrated by Barry Moser) ;co-written with

: *1963 '' Eggs of Things'' (Illustrated by

Leonard Shortall Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname. The given name and surname originate from the Old High German ''Leonhard'' containing the prefix ''levon'' ("lion") from the Greek Λέων ("lion") through the Latin '' ...

) *1964 '' More Eggs of Things'' (Illustrated by

) *1974 '' Joey and the Birthday Present'' (Illustrated by

Evaline Ness Evaline Ness (April 24, 1911 – August 12, 1986) was an American commercial artist, illustrator, and author of children's books. She illustrated more than thirty books for young readers and wrote several of her own. She is noted for using a ...

) *1975 '' The Wizard's Tears'' (Illustrated by

)

Memoirs

*''The Pawnbroker's Daughter'', W. W. Norton, July 2015,

References

External links

*
''Encyclopædia Britannica''
profile
Kumin profile
at 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 Poems
read 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 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