When I asked Maxine Kumin about the importance of anger in her poems she said, “Even in the poem I was just referring to [‘Jack’] in which the vet says, ‘We’ll give her one more season on grass/ and then we’ll put her down.
When I asked Maxine Kumin about the importance of anger in her poems she said, “Even in the poem I was just referring to [‘Jack’] in which the vet says, ‘We’ll give her one more season on grass/ and then we’ll put her down. Find a good place to dig the hole.’ And my rejection of that because she looks terrific—my supposedly dying horse. I’m not putting her down . . . I’m defying death for her, and I’m actually defying death for myself. You can’t live to this age without thinking about it, and how you’re going to leave. ”