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. Read full biography of Maxine Kumin →
That's my prescription for a happy marriage - marry someone who doesn't do anything similar to what you do.
I was a very, I think, lonely kid, very introspective. I felt very much at odds with my environment and my culture... Probably a genetic flaw. I... →
I've reached a point in life where it would be easy to let down my guard and write simple imagistic poems. But I don't want to write poems... →
The thing that's depressing is teaching graduate students today and discovering that they don't know simple elemental facts of grammar. They... →
I have a vast 'bone pile' of stillborn or abandoned poems along with jottings and wisps from the great beyond that I tend to scan. Sometimes... →
A lot of people use the dictionary to find out how to spell words.
So many poems you go into and come up empty.
There is an extraordinary degree of amity among Washington poets. They hang together. You would be hard pressed to find that in Manhattan.
Writing is my salvation. If I didn't write, what would I do?
I don't think I've ever felt terribly comfortable writing about my body. First of all, I think I took my body for granted for so many years.... →
If I'm working on a poem, it's at the forefront of my mind; I'm working on it when I'm cooking dinner or stretched out on the sofa.... →
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.