Cary Academy
The Life and Poetry of:
Maxine Kumin
Maxine Kumin is a wonderful poet because of her amazing talent to capture one issue and create a pure, vivid picture in your mind even if you have never experienced it. Kumin writes most, if not all, of her poems based on on-going issues such as starvation and war and also explores more personal issues as in family, love, and friendship. She also writes many poems based on her childhood experiences.
Kumin was born a Jew in 1925 and was very sympathetic to the Jews who were killed during WWII. She grew up in Philadelphia on a farm with her mother and her father. Kumin says that her parents never really took an interest in her poetry and even now don’t seem to push her to keep writing. Kumin believes that this helped her to keep writing because no one was really pushing her past her limits so she was able to write as she pleased.
Kumin has been friends and meets with many great poets, as well as inspiring young poets all over the world. Ever since there meeting at a poetry convention, Kumin and Anne Sexton were the best of friends. They inspired each other because they were so different. Kumin would bounce ideas off Sexton, and they would go to poetry readings together. Kumin was also greatly moved by Robert Frost’s poetry, which she thought was beautiful. Kumin has inspired many people and poets all over the world. She goes to many lectures, readings and discussions of her poetry and books. She has been a teacher and has a view that teaching her poetry is the best way to inspire and direct young writers. She loves being inspired and inspiring others.
Kumin’s poetry is very in form and modern in ideas. She writes mostly in four line stanzas and despises incorrect punctuation. Her ideas are very deep and thoughtful. Kumin says that a poem is not good unless it takes you years to discover its meaning, and also claims that she still does not quite understand some of her own poems. When she writes a poem, she does not just create a vision, she changes your life and your views. It makes you become older every time you read it, and each time you read the poem, it is different and you discover another thing about it.
Many people around the world find Kumin’s poems moving. She has won several awards including the Pulitzer Prize (1972), the Poets’ Prize (1992), and the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern Poetry. Unlike most people, when she won the Pulitzer Prize, she didn’t know if she would ever write again. She went back to her run down barn in Philadelphia for two weeks before she recovered from the shock. While there, she was inspired to write many poems about nature. Her works include four novels, many short stories, and over 20 children’s books. Maxine Kumin is a wonderful writer who helped me to understand many important facts about life.
- Selected
Poems 1960-1990
by Maxine Kumin ( May 1997) - Inside the
Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery
by Maxine Kumin (November 2001) - Always
Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry
by Maxine Kumin (August 2000) - Connecting
the Dots: Poems
by Maxine Kumin (July 1996) - Looking for
Luck: Poems
by Maxine Kumin (February 1993) - Bringing
Together: Uncollected Early Poems 1958-1988
by Maxine Kumin (June 2003) - The Long
Marriage: Poems
by Maxine Kumin (May 2003)