Maxine Kumin > Quotes

“Cherish your wilderness.”
― Maxine Kumin

“Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when

the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self

lay lightly down, and slept.”
― Maxine Kumin

“What can an outsider know, except/the shell of things?”
― Maxine Kumin

“Life will do anything for a living.”
― Maxine Kumin, And Short the Season

“THE PRE-TRIAL CONFINEMENT OF PRIVATE BRADLEY MANNING To drive a man to suicide you put Him on suicide watch, you take away His sheet and pillow, all his clothes except His underwear, you shine a light in day And night, you confiscate his eyeglasses, Then you deny that he’s in solitary. You say he lives in his own cell. Sightless. Each day he gets to walk around an empty Room for an hour. No pushups, no jogging in place. He’s not the first one held as an example. Amnesty reports it seeks redress As month by month both mind and body crumple. The Marines treat every detainee Firmly, fairly, and with dignity.”
― Maxine Kumin, And Short the Season: Poems

“Is this what happens to utopias from the Greek outopos, no place, why must they all evolve from u- to dys-?”
― Maxine Kumin, And Short the Season

“RED TAPE AND KANGAROO COURTS II Soundproof glass between the accused and observers in the courtroom shields what cannot be said what must be interrupted if the detainees speak of the dark acts at the dark heart of what took place during their confinement: for interrogation they held his head in the toilet and flushed it over and over for hunger strike they forcefed him until he vomited, then fed him again until he vomited again and when he passed out, they doused him awake in a cell with a steel bunk, no mattress, no blanket if we don’t talk about the torture it never happened.”
― Maxine Kumin, And Short the Season: Poems

“Is this what happens to utopias from the Freek outopos, no place, why must they all evolve from u- to dys-?”
― Maxine Kumin, And Short the Season

“She's an aristocrat who advocates –words worn across centuries—for women's rights.”
― Maxine Kumin, And Short the Season