Woodchucks

“After Love” by Maxine Kumin (1970)

Kumin describes a married woman’s reflections in bed after a moment of intimacy.

“In the Park” by Maxine Kumin (1989)

Kumin considers the mortality of humans and the human explanations for death and the afterlife.

“After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost (1914)

Like Kumin, Frost often set his poems in rural New England. This poem describes the speaker’s recollections of an ordinary day picking apples as the speaker falls asleep. The simple and direct language of the poem also echoes Kumin’s style.

“The Armadillo” by Elizabeth Bishop (1979)

Kumin’s style is often seen as similar to Bishop’s direct and simple language. Bishop’s “The Armadillo” describes a street carnival Bishop attended. When fire balloons are released into the sky, the balloons set the natural world on fire, and the poem recounts the resulting horror. Like Kumin, Bishop uses natural images to both create ecocritical commentary and allude to larger sociopolitical issues.

“The Ambition Bird” by Anne Sexton (1981)

Despite their close friendship and frequent collaboration, Kumin and Sexton have dramatically different poetic styles. Sexton is a confessional poet. In “The Ambition Bird,” the speaker uses the image of a bird to stand in for the existential crisis the speaker is experiencing regarding ambition and purpose.