"Here is a singular story of survival, an earthly miracle wrought by family devotion, gardens, horses, guts. A compelling read."—Carolyn Heilbrun

In July 1998, when Maxine Kumin's horse bolted at a carriage-driving clinic, she was not expected to live. Yet, less than a year later, her progress pronounced a miracle by her doctors, she was at work on this journal of her astonishing recovery. She tells of her time "inside the halo," the near-medieval device that kept her head immobile during weeks of intensive care and rehabilitation, of the lasting "rehab" friendships, and of the loving family who always believed she would heal.

"[S]he resonates wisdom while announcing a triumph of body and soul."—Anne Roiphe, New York Times Book Review

"Maxine Kumin brings the sensitivity and imagination of a poet to her extraordinary ordeal."—Richard Selzer, author of Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery

"From a singular experience she has created a lesson that is universal, which, it seems to me, is the essence of being a poet."—Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner

"Her poems become increasingly unforgettable, indispensable. . . . Thoreau would commend her honesty, the precision of her language and her occasional moral allegory."—New York Times Book Review

"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

Gathered from nine collections representing three decades of work, these poems—newly available here in a rich and varied volume—celebrate the growth of a major artist.

Since the publication of her first book of poetry, Halfway, Maxine Kumin has been powerfully and fruitfully engaged in the "stuff of life that matters": family, friendship, the bond between the human and natural worlds, and the themes of loss and survival.

"A perceptive, distinctive voice. . . . The evolution and inherent integrity of Kumin's poetry, wise, generous, and passionate, is deftly captured in this forceful selection." —Publishers Weekly

"A welcome addition to any poetry library."—Richard Tillinghast, New York Times Book Review

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Here Maxine Kumin's signature nature poems are shaken up and invigorated by the darker, human realities. Both "delicate and powerful" (Library Journal), she faces with equanimity the disappointments and joys of sixty years of marriage ending with the unspoken question of "Which of us will go down first."

"Measured but warm, this work draws you in; it is another success among her many titles."--"Library Journal"
In her fifteenth collection, Maxine Kumin meditates on the social consequences of such events as the bicentennial of the Civil War, and looks to poets writing from circumstances vastly different from her own. With death the central theme, poems of the body and praise songs for beloved animals explore how memory consoles and haunts.

THIS LUMINOUS COLLECTION is Maxine Kumin's twelfth volume of poetry, the first since her remarkable memoir, Inside the Halo. Themes of loyalty, longevity, and recovery appear here, along with poems addressing the eminent dead: Wordsworth, Gorki, Rukeyser, and others. "Inescapably, many poems come up out of the earth I live on and tend to." Kumin says.

"Kumin's is a poetry of wide sympathy and tact in which the ecumenical flavor is dominant. . . . This collection is full of generational severance and renewal, and a tart and compassionate irony."—The New Yorker

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.

"Every poem in this collection is a treasure."—Library Journal

"Her poems become increasingly unforgettable, indispensable."—The New York Times Book Review

After her near-fatal accident, chronicled in her remarkable memoir, Inside the Halo and Beyond, Maxine Kumin feared that poetry might have "deserted" her. This luminous, reflective collection proves her wrong, and it is a special cause for celebration.

Themes of loyalty, longevity, and recovery appear here, and in a series of poems Kumin finds inspiration in addressing other poets, especially the eminent dead: "Skinnydipping with Wordsworth," "Imagining Marianne Moore in a Butterfly Garden," "Rilke Revisited." Especially intimate and poignant are poems about Anne Sexton, "Three Poems After a Suicide." Finally, nature, both directly and metaphorically, continues to engage Kumin. "Inescapably," she says, "many poems come up out of the earth I live on and tend to."