Connecting the Dots: Poems [Paperback]

Maxine Kumin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1998

"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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Maxine Kumin, whose previous works include the poetry books Looking for Luck and The Microscope, and the essay collections To Make a Prairie and Women, Animals and Vegetables, has added another fine poetry collection to her volume of work. She's all over the map with this one, from country New Hampshire to urban Boston, from Jewish agnosticism to convent school, and from spring training to ethnic cleansing, yet most always with an eye on the influence of the church. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The process referred to in the title?and final?poem of Kumin's 11th collection is the ability to take care of one's business, personal and metaphysical. Here, the poet is aware that her grown children, on their visits home, gently assess her ability in this regard. Kumin is indeed still taking care of the same business that has absorbed her throughout her career: noting the connections among family members; tracking the relations among people, animals and the natural world; and observing the moral responsibility of daily life. Her customary candor and irony are still present, as in her recollection of her youthful religious imagination and the demands her faith might make on her: "I didn't know how little risk I ran/ of being asked to set my people free... I didn't know the patriarchy that spared me/ fame had named me chattell, handmaiden." Although some poems are less substantive than others ("Vignette" is little more than its title suggests), others are memorably strong, particularly the poems about her mother and a number of vivid elegies. In "New Year's Eve 1959," Jack Geiger is recalled dancing with Anne Sexton, "...pecking his head to the beat/ swinging her out on the stalk of his arm/ setting all eight gores of her skirt/ twirling." In "After the Cleansing of Bosnia," Kumin constructs startling and sophisticated images that connect her expatriate daughter as a child and as an adult, the continuing cycle of world sorrow and the mysterious beauty of her rural life.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (January 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393316955
• ISBN-13: 978-0393316957
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,878,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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