Ambience was a key ingredient Sunday, March 4, when the Eagle Pond Author’s Series featured Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Maxine Kumin, in Smith Recital Hall.
Kumin, a resident of Warner, N.H., is famous for her written works involving animals and day-to-day life on her farm.
“She has written with a wonder sense of narrative and character that you don’t always find in poetry,” said United States Poet Laureate, Donald Hall, in his introduction of Kumin. “Maxine was a Poet Laureate before it was called a Poet Laureate.”
Kumin read several works during the program, mixing in stories and sidebars about her life to accompany the pieces. Poems encompassed the topics of lost pets, friends that have since passed away, childhood memories of Nuns, neighbors attending a Red Sox game and elephants in a market in Bangkok. Each work was recited with the same moving and truthful tone that Hall spoke of. Several of the poems focused on her horses, including “Jack,” a title poem to one of her books.
“A big nosed roan gelding, calm as a president’s portrait,” read Kumin. “Lives in the rectangle that leads to the stalls. We call it the motel lobby. Wise old campaigner, he dunks his hay in the water bucket to soften it, then visits the others who hang their heads over their Dutch doors.”
Another work was about waiting for the birth of a young foal named Praise Be.
“I always moved down to the barn a week before due date and slept on the top of the sawdust pile because I could see the fouling area,” said Kumin. Receiving laughter from the audience, she continued, “I slept on that sawdust pile for 21 days.”
Kumin uses several different poetic styles in her writing. When asked by an audience member why she chose a form for her poem, “Woodchucks,” Kumin answered, “So I could write it.”