My very first writing conference. I was a terrified graduate student attending session after session of writers whose work I had never read, who were smarter and better informed, who seemed to know all there was to know about publishing and craft and how to break a line. I was jostled in long hotel hallways as I tried to find the right conference rooms. I was jostled waiting for slow elevators, for bathroom stalls, for coffee. I remember feeling almost nothing but overwhelmed.
And then, Maxine Kumin. A small, stuffy, crowded room packed with people, mostly women, and too few chairs. I sat on the floor with dozens of others—that horrible hotel carpeting. I remember she read from Inside the Halo and Beyond. I remember she looked impossibly old, even then, impossibly fragile, her body stiff from the surgeries and recovery she had endured.
I sat in awe.
When she finished, we all stood to applaud, and a line quickly formed in front of the table where she stood. Some people asked her to sign their books, but I hadn’t thought to bring any. Some people asked her smart-sounding poetry questions, but I couldn’t find anything smart to say. I felt completely empty.
Finally, I reached the front of the line. She stood, impossibly small. And I started to cry.
“Your work has meant so much to me,” I said, the only words that came.
She smiled and said “Thank you.” And I walked away.
My moment with Maxine Kumin and all I could do was cry. But isn’t that what the very best writers do to us? Take away our words. Take away our breath.
When I texted a friend that Kumin had died, my phone’s autocorrect changed “Kumin” to “luminosity.” As in, “the intrinsic brightness of a celestial object.” As in, “bright or shining, especially in the dark.”
An outrageously appropriate autocorrect—because that’s what Kumin’s work does for me, sheds light, reminds me to pay attention, stay present in this world, stay present with this world’s beauty, this world’s awfulness. Her work is daring and quiet, bold, full of light and loss. Her work says things I didn’t always know poetry was allowed to say. Her work makes me feel safe that such brilliance exists in the world.
More poetry books are published every year than any one of us could read. But voices like Kumin’s? Like her contemporary, Adrienne Rich? Books that speak unspeakable truths? That dare? That are narrative and lyrical, mired in the personal and the political, that are brave and brave and brave?
“How are you taking her death?” my friend texted back.
“I somehow thought she would live forever,” I replied.
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
Planet of the Blind 