num_pages: 256
description: In her essays, as with her Pultizer Prize-winning poetry, Maxine Kumin is equally at ease musing over her garden or discussing poetic form, raising horses or critiquing the work of other poets. For Kumin, poetry is inseparable from daily life. Whether remembering the early days of courtship with her husband (who then worked at Los Alamos during the first nuclear tests) or observing a grandchild learning to swim, poetry is a natural part of the discussion, as when, during an MRI, she recounts the healing role of memorized "Lying in my MRI tomb and doggedly reciting the poem against the terrible rapping, I realized what saved me..." "Maxine Kumin's practical yet sensual New England reflections are a gift to any lover of the country."- New York Times Book Review "Kumin, bless her heart, just gets better and better."- Library Journal In addition to twelve volumes of poetry, Maxine Kumin has published books of essays, short stories, and novels, and collaborated on four children's books with the late Anne Sexton. The recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, she has also served as the Poet Laureate and was, until her recent controversial resignation, a chancellor at the Academy of American Poets. She lives with her husband, Victor, on a farm in central New Hampshire. Table of Contents Part OneExcerpts from a June JournalBeansJune 1, 1991: Sleeping LateJune 16, 1991: Final FoalJournal Entry, PoBiz, TexasNotes from My Journal, Kyoto, December 1984 Part TwoIntersticesSwimming and WritingMotherhood and PoeticsOctober 4, 1995For Anne at PassoverRecitationsFirst Loves Part ThreeAn Appreciation of Marianne Moore's Selected LettersThis Curious Silent Unrepresented LifeJosephine JacobsenBack to the Mona Van DuynA Postcard from the VolcanoEssay on Robert Frost Part FourTrochee, Trimeter, and the On A Shropshire Lad The VillanelleA Way of Staying SaneWord for "Poem for My Son"Scrubbed Up and Sent to School Part FiveKeynote Address, PEN-New Eng
language: English
title: Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry
titlecomplete: Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry
genres: Essays, Poetry
ratings_count: 24
publisher: Copper Canyon Press