Product Description
Compiled by three noted poets, this is an eclectic, stimulating, and informed selection of poets' remarks on poetry spanning eras, ethnicities, and aesthetics. The 102 selections from nearly as many poets reach back to the Greeks and Romans, then draw on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Milton, on to Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Poe, then Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot, Rilke, and Pound, concluding with many of our contemporaries, including Hall, Clifton, Mackey, Kunitz, and Rukeyser. Selections from lesser known poets are also included, such as Moira Egan, Phyllis Wheatley, Fanny Howe, Lyn Hejinian, Joy Harjo, and Li-Young Lee.

The book is divided into three sections. "Musing" concerns issues of inspiration, "Making" issues of craft, from diction to meter to persona and voice, and "Mapping," the role of poetry and the poet. Headnotes at the beginning of each selection provide interesting background information about the poet and commentary on the significance of the selection. There is also a useful appendix with a listing of essays arranged according to more specific topics.

As the poets write in their introduction: "This book was intended to deepen readers' understanding of age-old poetic ideas while at the same time pointing out new directions for thinking about poetry, juxtaposing the familiar and the strange, reconfiguring old boundaries, and shaking up stereotypes." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent
This mix of texts and poems of poets writing about poetry is well-structured and includes diverse poets, ancient, traditional, and contemporary -- western and eastern.It's a pleasure to read, to dip into, to own.

Great book!
This book is a great collection of writings by and interviews of poets that discuss many aspects of writing poetry. It's great for poetry classes of any level. ... Read more

Product Description
Collected here for the first time, these early poems inhabit Kumin's own "sneakstorm time," a space one step to the side, where quiet introspection examines the pain of loss, the idealism of youth, and the endurance of the natural world. Her characteristic earthy wisdom snaps with intensity, offering a refreshing perspective on everyday experiences. ... Read more

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Set in a small town that houses little more than a research lab and an engineering school, the body of the lab's director is found in a pit used for maternal deprivation experiments with monkeys. A few days later, a graduate student is found murdered as well. Are these deaths connected? And who's responsible for these murders? Written by one of America's greatest poets, this mystery is a scathing social commentary with a criminal twist.

Maxine Kumin is the author of poetry, novels, short stories, essays and a number of children's books. She has received several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Poets' Prize, the Levinson Prize, and most recently, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. She lives in Warner, New Hampshire.Amazon.com Review
Penzler Pick, December 1999: A large cast of characters populates this elegant debut mystery by a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. The setting is southern California--a mostly sleepy town the main employer of which is a suddenly controversial research lab. The lab director, found dead in bizarre circumstances, left behind a few too many people who wished him such a fate, including members of his own family and staff. This classic setup is overseen by the local chief of police, one Digger Martinez. It's only his second homicide in 30 years and at 73 he's willing to admit that detecting hasn't been his thing. As he struggles to resist the donuts that are his downfall, he ambles around with shrewd geniality, asking a few questions here and there but mostly just waiting and listening well until the truth reveals itself. Everyone's hiding something, including the dead man's twin brother, his children (also twins), his wife, and a couple of young employees, one of whom herself soon winds up dead.

Readers sorting through the layers of culpability will find added color in runaway llamas, missing monkeys, an ecumenical Seder gone awry, kinky sex, and a rodeo rider scared to death of horses. Not to mention the animal rights activists: the violently inclined Bandits of Mercy. Digger Martinez is an appealing character, a fine invention by Kumin, whose taste is for the intelligently traditional even as she brings it squarely up to date. And the pleasure of reading this entertaining treatise on animal rights is enhanced by a handsome page design and typeface--a first-class production from a small publisher. --Otto Penzler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Mystery?
I found this book very frustrating and hard to follow.I bought it alongwith a couple of other paperback mysteries and wish I hadn't paid thehardcover price!Try "A Force of Habit" for REAL mystery.Thisfirst time author did an incredible job keeping me guessing till the end.

Promise not fulfilled
Ms. Kumin seems to be depending on her reputation as a wordsmith to carry an original, but badly confused, mystery novel. My wife passed the book to me with the comment, "You like mysteries, this book drives mecrazy". The assertion is true, but I feel her implied criticism isunwarrented. Good mysteries do not obscure by twisting the time sequence ofeach chapter so that the reader is confused as he reads sequentially. Thisis fakery and gratuitous reader manipulation. This could be a good read,but it is not. An editor should have said, "Maxine, what are youtrying to say? Where is the 'mystery'? Have you thought about theimpression your book will leave on the reader?" There are some gooddescriptions of the land right next to some pedestrian prose (unusual for apoet). If I were her editor, I'd give it back and tell her to rewrite it. ... Read more

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The new wizard tries to solve all the town's problems, but carelessness with his own magic tears creates a tragedy instead. ... Read more

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"From a marketplace in Bangkok to the fields of New Hampshire, from recollections of her own childhood to celebrations of an infant grandson, Kumin stakes her far-flung claims with authority in her tenth book of poetry."--Publishers Weekly ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A book with humor and insight
The poems in this book are full of humor and a down-to-earth insight that avoids tear-jerking while being very True and Beautiful!The poet grew up with horses. She loves them but does not romanticize them which is the way true horse lovers love their animals.The poem about the sloth's defecating is light-hearted and lovely. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a small book of poems close at hand to reflect upon at different times as, like most good poetry, you can see different facets in different light. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"And suppose the darlings get to Mantua,"
Kumin has never received the popular recognition that she deserves, despite her many awards (including the Pulitzer Prize). She is a meticulous and moving poet with a keen ear for language and form.

The Privilege, published in 1965, is her second book of poetry. It is divided into three sections: the untitled main first section, a section called "conceits", and the final section called "Joppa Diary". It contains a number of her more famous poems, including "Purgatory", the poem which gives this review its title.

Many of these poems appear again in her collected works volume, but I encourage the potential reader to try to find this book as a whole. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
In these new poems, her eleventh collection, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet focuses on the themes of family, friendship, the pleasures and rigors of rural life and the animal world that have always engaged her powerfully and fruitfully. Change and the things that never change attract Kumin's attention equally. Whether chronicling the bounty of summer, the cycle of seasons, or memories of youthful parties, her voice is clear, wise, and compelling.Amazon.com Review
Maxine Kumin, whose previous works include the poetry booksLooking for Luck and The Microscope, and the essaycollections To Make a Prairieand Women, Animals andVegetables, has added another fine poetry collection to her volume ofwork. She's all over the map with this one, from country New Hampshire tourban Boston, from Jewish agnosticism to convent school, and from springtraining to ethnic cleansing, yet most always with an eye on the influence ofthe church. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from OnEarth, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 762 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The wings of winter.(bird watching)
Author: Maxine Kumin
Publication: OnEarth (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 27Issue: 4Page: 48(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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The bonds that unite - and threaten to strangle - father and daughter are the the stuff of this passionately realized novel of Joanna Ferguson, eighteen and angry, child of a prosperous Jewish pawnbroker. ... Read more

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A new collection of verses from a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet touches on the theme of survival--on a personal level and as a species--then reviews times past and lauds the educational prospects found in travel. ... Read more