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Great Lives from History: American Women

Maxine Kumin

by Marcia B. Dinneen, Micah L. Issitt

Poet and educator

Kumin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, has written about nature, her past, and the degrading treatment of animals raised for food. She and her family settled in a rural farmhouse, an area that gives her endless inspiration for her poems.

Born: June 6, 1925

Died: February 6, 2014

Area of Achievement: Education, literature

Early Life

Maxine Kumin (MAKS-een KEW-mihn) was the youngest child and the only daughter of Peter Winokur, owner of a large pawnshop in South Philadelphia, and Belle “Doll” Simon, a homemaker. Kumin's grandparents, on both sides, were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Although the family embraced Jewish traditions and attended a Reform temple in Philadelphia, they lived in a mostly Catholic neighborhood in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and celebrated Christmas like their Christian friends. Because the public school was a mile away and there was no bus, Kumin attended the school next to her house from kindergarten through second grade. It was a Catholic school, affiliated with the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. When Kumin was eight, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Hearing stories about the Holocaust, Kumin felt guilty about living a safe, privileged life. These feelings are reflected in several poems in The Nightmare Factory (1970), her third book of poetry.

After her parents found a rosary in her pocket, Kumin was sent to public schools and graduated from high school in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. She wrote some poetry at a young age, but Kumin, who has characterized herself as a “jock,” was focused on becoming a swimmer. She worked out at the Broadmore Pool in Philadelphia, racing freestyle for the Women's Athletic Association, and thought she was in line to compete in the Olympic Games. She was offered a chance to tour with Billy Rose's Aquacade when she was eighteen, but her father would not allow it. Her poem, “Life's Work,” blends the story of her mother's training to be a concert pianist with her training to be a distance swimmer. Both were not allowed to do what they wished because, according to their fathers, a woman's place was neither in a concert hall nor competing in a sport.

In 1942, Kumin entered Radcliffe College, majoring in history and literature. As a freshman, she was placed in an advanced writing class and submitted some poems to Wallace Stegner, then an instructor, for his comments. He wrote that she should “Say it with flowers,” but not try to write poetry. That ended her attempts at poetry for some years. Kumin became an activist, joining a group working with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), a labor group trying to establish a union at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, near Boston. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) notified her father that she was consorting with Communists, he threatened to take her out of Radcliffe. Kumin said she was staying and would pay her own way with scholarships and work study. She graduated in 1946, and on June 29, 1946, she married Victor Montwid Kumin, a chemical engineer. Kumin received a master's degree from Radcliffe in 1948, and that year had her first child.

Living Within and Without the Halo

When Maxine Kumin was gravely injured after her horse Deuter bolted on July 21, 1998, bystanders believed she would die or at the least be paralyzed. The C1 and C2 vertebrae of her neck were broken, and so were eleven ribs. She had a punctured lung, liver and kidney damage, and multiple contusions. Kumin was immobilized in a device called a halo (axial traction) to prevent further damage to her neck and to facilitate healing. It was expected she would be confined to the device for twelve weeks. For a person who enjoyed a physical life out of doors, this was a cruel prospect. At one point, Kumin considered suicide, but her family came to her rescue. Her husband of fifty years handled the details of their life at the farm and the animals. Her daughter, Judith, took a leave of absence from her position with the United Nations to stay with her. Judith got Kumin started on the diary detailing her recovery that became Inside the Halo and Beyond (2000). Her son, Daniel, set up a television, so she could watch Red Sox games. Her daughter, Jane, flew in from the West Coast to spoon-feed her. Supported by her family and friends, Kumin found the will to heal. Less than six months after the accident, she was in Florida, teaching a writing workshop.

Life's Work

Between October, 1948, and June, 1953, Kumin had three children and was occupied with their care. The family moved to Newton, a suburb of Boston, and Kumin played the part of a suburban mom. To “save her sanity,” she began ghostwriting articles for medical journals and composing light verses for magazines. When pregnant with her third child, Kumin vowed that if she did not sell one of these verses before her son was born, she would give up poetry. In her eighth month, her verses started selling to magazines, such as Cosmopolitan, and to newspapers. She published a couple hundred light verse poems, but her commitment to her family always came first; her writing was “fit in.”

In 1957, Kumin joined a writing workshop at the Boston Center for Adult Education, taught by poet and Tufts University English professor John Holmes. Holmes became her mentor; she called him her “Christian academic daddy.” It was Holmes who obtained a part-time teaching position for her at Tufts. At the workshop Kumin met Anne Sexton; they became friends, motivating and supporting each other's writing. Sexton also had young children and lived nearby. They worked together on their writing every day, often through long telephone conversations. Kumin published her first book of poetry, Halfway, in 1961, in an edition of one thousand copies. Only three hundred copies sold, but the book was critically acclaimed. Kumin continued to write, and in 1961 she and Sexton were selected for the Radcliffe Institute of Independent Study, an experiment to provide married women an opportunity to study and possibly to publish.

In 1963, the Kumins bought a neglected two-hundred-acre dairy farm in Warner, New Hampshire. The farm was to be the Kumins' summer retreat, but, inspired by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Kumin was committed to doing something positive for the environment. She called the farm Pobiz, short for poetry business, but the farm became more than a getaway. It was a place to write poetry. The family moved to the farm permanently in 1976. There, gardening became Kumin's passion, along with rescuing and raising horses and preserving the land.

Kumin continued writing, both poetry and prose. She and Sexton wrote four children's books together. Sexton's suicide in 1974 was devastating to Kumin, but she continued to write. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Kumin uses traditional metrics and rhyme in her poetry. Form is critical to her as a device to keep emotions under control. Her poems are often about her family, including “The Pawnbroker,” about her father and her past. Kumin's writing embraces a range of interests. Poems about the natural world, such as “Woodchucks,” which is heavily anthologized, are typical of Kumin. Some of them are startling in their cruelty as Kumin portrays the reality of the treatment of animals raised for food, as in “Taking the Lambs to Market.” In 1973, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Up Country: Poems of New England (1972).

Over the years Kumin has taught poetry classes at various colleges and universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brandeis, and Princeton. She has directed a number of writing workshops, written poetry and prose, nurtured her family, and enjoyed her home in New Hampshire. Her writing has won many awards. She was appointed Library of Congress consultant in poetry in 1981; the position was later renamed U.S. Poet Laureate. In 1998, she had a life-threatening accident and almost died. Then seventy-three, Kumin recovered and continued to write, publish, teach, and tend to her family, animals, and land.

In 1999, Kumin published the novel, Quit Monks or Die, a mystery novel dealing with the issue of animal rights. She also continued publishing poetry, including the 2003 collection The Long Marriage, the 2005 Jack and Other Poems, and the 2009 Still to Mow: Poems. Kumin's final book of poetry, And the Short Season was released in 2014. She also published the children's book, Oh, Harry! In 2011. Kumin's health began to deteriorate and she died in February of 2014 at her home in Warner, New Hampshire. She was survived by her husband Victor, three children, and two grandchildren.

Significance

Kumin has published eighteen books of poetry, five novels, several children's books, essays, and short stories. Her body of work shows her commitment to nature; she was once called “Roberta Frost,” demonstrating her similarity to poet Robert Frost. However, Kumin goes beyond Frost in detailing both the beauty and the ugliness of nature by describing how people have defiled the planet. She also writes about faith and belief, family and parenthood, and bearing witness to contemporary events.

Citation Types

Type

Format

MLA 9th

Dinneen, Marcia B., and Micah L. Issitt. "Maxine Kumin." Great Lives from History: American Women, edited by Mary K. Trigg, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLHW_0273.

APA 7th

Dinneen, M. B., & Issitt, M. L. (2016). Maxine Kumin. In M. K. Trigg (Ed.), Great Lives from History: American Women. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Dinneen, Marcia B. and Issitt, Micah L. "Maxine Kumin." Edited by Mary K. Trigg. Great Lives from History: American Women. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2016. Accessed September 17, 2025. online.salempress.com.

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