Maxine Kumin - Life, Career, Trivia, Bibliography

Poet and writer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She studied at Radcliffe (1946 BA; 1948 MA), and married in 1946. She taught at Tufts (1958–61, 1965–8), Princeton (1977, 1979, 1981–2), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1984) among other institutions. A writer of fiction, children's books, essays, and poetry, she was named poetry consultant to the Library of Congress (1981–2), and is best known for poems of the Northeast, as in Up Country: Poems of New England (1972). She settled in Warner, NH.

Maxine Kumin (b.

Life

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Kumin, the daughter of Jewish parents, attended Catholic kindergarten and lower schools. Kumin taught English from 1958 to 1961 and 1965 to 1968 at Tufts University;

Career

Kumin's many awards include the Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize from Poetry (1972), the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1973) for Up Country, the Aiken Taylor Prize, the Poets' Prize, an American Academy and Institute of Arts a Letters Award for excellence in literature (1980), an Academy of American Poets fellowship (1986), the 1999 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and six honorary degrees.

Critics have compared Kumin with Elizabeth Bishop because of her meticulous observations, and with Robert Frost, for she frequently devotes her attention to the rhythms of life in rural New England.

She currently teaches poetry in New England College's Low-Residency MFA Program.

Trivia

Kumin is believed to be the last person to have seen Anne Sexton alive, having had lunch with Sexton the day of her death, October 4, 1974.

Bibliography

This list of publications was provided by Maxine Kumin.

Publications: Poetry

Jack and Other New Poems, W.W. Norton Co., 2003 The Long Marriage, W.W.Norton Co., 2001, cloth, paper; finalist for the Lenore Marshall Award of the Academy of American Poets, 2002 Selected Poems 1960-1990, W.W. The Long Approach, Viking /Penguin, 1985-6, o.o.p. The Retrieval System, Viking/Penguin, 1978, o.o.p. House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate, Viking/ Penguin, 1975, o.o.p. Row, 1972, o.o.p. Row, 1970, o.o.p. Row, 1965, o.o.p. Winston, 1961, o.o.p.

Publications: Novels

Quit Monks or Die (animal rights mystery), Story Line Press, 1999 The Designated Heir, Viking, 1974, o.o.p.; Andre Deutsch (England) o.o.p. Row, 1971, o.o.p. Row, 1968, Dell paper, 1969, o.o.p. Gollancz (England), Panther paper, o.o.p.

Publications: Short Stories

Why Can't We Live Together Like Civilized Human Beings? Viking 1982, o.o.p.

Publications: Essays

Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry, Copper Canyon Press, 2000 Inside the Halo and the Journey Beyond, W. Norton Co., 1999 Women, Animals, and Vegetables: Essays and Stories, Norton, 1994, o.o.p.; Ontario Review Press, paper, 1996 In Deep: Country Essays, Viking 1987, o.o.p.; Beacon Press 1988, o.o.p. To Make a Prairie: Essays on Poets, Poetry and Country Living, University of Michigan Press, 1980 paper

Publications: Critique

Telling the Barn Swallow: Poets on the Poetry of Maxine Kumin, ed.