The Match

Maxine Kumin’s tenth book of poetry, Looking for Luck, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award of 1993. Her new book, Women, Animals and Vegetables: Essays and Stories, from which this story is taken, will be published by Norton in August 1994. She raises horses on a farm near Warner, New Hampshire

The Missing Person

Short story first published in Triquarterly (1978)

Peeling Fence Posts and Other Poems

MAXINE KUMIN of Warner, New Hampshire is a poet, fiction writer, and horsewoman. Her most recent books are The Retrieval System and House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate. She has received numerous awards for her work, including a National Council on the Arts Fellowship and the Pulitzer Prize (1973, for Up Country)

Maxine Kumin, 10th Annual ODU Literary Festival

Maxine Kumin has published seven books of poetry, five books of fiction, two collections of essays, and twenty books for children. Her book Up Country was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1973. Former chair of the NEA Literature Panel, she has taught at Tufts, the University of Massachusetts, and Princeton. Currently, she lives and works on her farm in New Hampshire. A profound spiritual connection to the land and to the realm of animals infuses Kumin\u27s work with regenerative energy. Again and again, her poems explore the human role in the continuum, whether destructive or nourishing. Booklist Poetry: Halfway; The Privilege; The Nightmare Factory; Up Country; House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate; The Retrieval System; Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief; The Long Approach. Fiction: Through Dreams of Love; The Passions of Uxport; The Abduction; The Designated Heir; Why Can\u27t We Live Together Like Civilized Human Beings?. Essays: To Make a Prairie: Essays on Poets, Poetry, and Country Living; In Deep: Country Essays

Maxine Kumin Poetry Reading (Side A)

November 17th, 1982 at Bard Hallhttps://digitalcommons.bard.edu/poetry_at_bard/1054/thumbnail.jp

Reading: Maxine Kumin

In this audiovisual recording from March 19, 1986 as part of the 17th annual UND Writers Conference: “To Make a Prairie,” Maxine Kumin reads a selection of poems. Kumin reads “Fräulein Reads Instructive Rhymes,” “Casablanca,” “Morning Swim,” “Watering Trough,” “Woodchucks,” “The Hermit Meets the Skunk,” “Amanda Dreams She Has Died and Gone to the Elysian Fields,” “In the Root Cellar,” “A Mortal Day of No Surprises,” “July Against Hunger,” “Splitting Wood at Six Above,” “Birthday Poem,” “The Envelope,” “My Father\u27s Neckties,” “The Longing to be Saved,” “Feeding Time,” “You Are in Bear Country,” “Atlantic City, 1939,” “Grandchild,” “Video Cuisine,” “Getting Through,” “After the Harvest” [Note: the reading of this poem is interrupted], and “The Long Approach.

Maxine Kumin Poetry Reading (Side B)

November 17th, 1982 at Bard Hallhttps://digitalcommons.bard.edu/poetry_at_bard/1055/thumbnail.jp

Panel: Clovers, Bees, and Reveries

This audiovisual recording from March 18, 1986 as part of the 17th annual UND Writing Conference: “To Make a Prairie” features Ellen Gilchrist, Maxine Kumin, and Rebecca Hill forming the panel “Clovers, Bees, and Reveries.” The panelists discuss the benefits and burdens of writers\u27 conferences on writers, the transfer of life into art, growing up as readers, balancing their writing with raising children, feminist writing in the United States, moving between fiction and poetry, writing characters, advice to aspiring writers, balancing isolation and awareness, taking risks and finding motivation when starting out as writers, writing habits, working under deadlines, and compromise