Maxine Kumin

I don't think I've ever felt terribly comfortable writing about my body. First of all, I think I took my body for granted for so many years. I abused it a lot.

That's my prescription for a happy marriage - marry someone who doesn't do anything similar to what you do.

I've reached a point in life where it would be easy to let down my guard and write simple imagistic poems. But I don't want to write poems that aren't necessary. I want to write poems that matter, that have an interesting point of view.

I was a very, I think, lonely kid, very introspective. I felt very much at odds with my environment and my culture... Probably a genetic flaw. I can't really explain it.

The thing that's depressing is teaching graduate students today and discovering that they don't know simple elemental facts of grammar. They really do not know how to scan a line; they've never been taught to scan a line. Many of them don't know the difference between 'lie' and 'lay,' let alone 'its' and 'it's.' And they're in graduate school!