Bishop-Lowell-Sexton: Contemporary Yet Transcendentalist

Maxine Kumin

Bishop-Lowell- Sexton: Contemporary yet Transcendentalist

Maxine Kumin was born on June 6, 1925 in Germantown in Philadelphia. She was the youngest of four children and was the only girl. Being able to read before kindergarten was probably the first sign of this child becoming a famous contemporary poet of her time. Kumin was Jewish growing up, yet attended a protestant Christian school. She excelled as a swimmer. In fact, she could've swam in college and perhaps even at the professional level. It was her dad that told her that she couldn't pursue her dream of swimming.

She graduated from Radcliffe with an A.B in 1946. In the same year she married Victor Kumin, an engineering consultant. In 1948 she went back to school and got her M.A in history and literature. In the midst of being a housewife Kumin grew unsatisfied. Taking to poetry, Kumin went to Boston Center for Adult Education where she met her good friend Anne Sexton. Kumin began writing short stories and light verse poems along with Sexton. In 1953 her work was first published in a magazine. Then in 1958 Kumin taught English at Tufts University until 1961 and again from 1965 till 1968. Halfway, her first poetry book, was released in 1961 which was the start of her well known career. The jokingly called Roberta Frost came out with The Privilege in 1965 and another, The Nightmare Factory, in 1970 describing her family and her Jewish identity. One of her most recognized works, Up Country: Poems of New England, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1973.

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Kumin has had a consistent career in poetry and still lives today on her farm in New Hampshire. In 1998 she suffered a near death experience during a horse accident which she was crushed by a carriage. She made it through many remarkable surgeries which most people wouldn't make it through.