Maxine Kumin Papers

Poet Maxine Kumin is the author of some fifteen books of poetry, a memoir, Inside the Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery, three collections of essays, a book of short stories, four novels, and a murder mystery. In 1973, Kumin won the Pulitzer Prize for her fourth book of poetry, Up Country. She has also won the Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize from Poetry (1972), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for excellence in literature (1980), an Academy of American Poets fellowship (1986), the Poets’ Prize (1993), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1999) the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern Poetry (1995), and six honorary degrees.
The Maxine Kumin Papers at the Beinecke Library contain manuscripts and drafts of several of the author’s books, including The Quill-Lion and the Unicorn, Subduing the Dream in Alaska, The Long Marriage, Bringing Together, Jack and Other New Poems, Excerpts from a June Journal, The Designated Heir, The Long Approach, When Mother Was Young, A Winter Friend, Inside the Halo and Beyond, and many drafts of individual poems. The collection includes correspondence with Carolyn Kizer, Daniel Hoffman, Josephine Jacobsen, Donald Hall, Dudley Fitts, William Meredith, Howard Nemerov, Anne Sexton, Robert Pinsky, William Jay Smith, and several publishers. Audio and video recordings of readings and interviews are also available, as are additional materials including translations, speeches, lectures, family letters, postcards, greeting cards, clippings, and a scrapbook.
A preliminary list of the papers is available online: Maxine Kumin Papers Preliminary List
For more information about the Beinecke’s holdings, please search for “Maxine Kumin” in the Library’s Uncataloged Acquisitions Database.