Maxine Kumin

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...

A bright, curious girl in a wheelchair who enjoys visiting a petting zoo in her Florida town uncovers a mystery surrounding a shack full of screeching monkeys.

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.

"From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin, a timeless memoir of life, love, and poetry. Maxine Kumin left an unrivaled legacy as a pioneering poet and feminist. The Pawnbroker's Daughter charts her journey from a childhood in the Jewish community in Depression-era Philadelphia, where Kumin's father was a pawnbroker, to Radcliffe College, where she comes into her own as an intellectual and meets the soldier-turned-Los Alamos scientist who would...

"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...

An illustrated collection of children's poems about the marvelous characteristics of a wide variety of animals.