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MAXINE KUMIN (ESSAY DATE 1981)

SOURCE: Kumin, Maxine. “How It Was: Maxine Kumin on Anne Sexton.” In The Complete Poems, by Anne Sexton, pp. xix–xxxiv. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981.

In the following essay, Kumin reminisces about her relationship with Sexton, providing an overview of Sexton’s life and career.

Anne Sexton as I remember her on our first meeting in the late winter of 1957, tall, blue-eyed, stunningly slim, her carefully coifed dark hair decorated with flowers, her face skillfully made up, looked every inch the fashion model. And indeed she had briefly modeled for the Hart Agency in Boston. Earrings and bracelets, French perfume, high heels, matching lip and fingernail gloss bedecked her, all intimidating sophistications in the chalk-and-wet-overshoes atmosphere of the Boston Center for Adult Education, where we were enrolled in John Holmes’s poetry workshop. Poetry—we...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. General Commentary
   1. Anne Sexton And Maxine Kumin, Elaine Showalter, And Carol Smith (Interview Date 15 April 1974)
   2. Maxine Kumin (Essay Date 1981)
   3. Diane Middlebrook (Essay Date Winter 1984)
4. Title Commentary
   1. The Complete Poems
5. Further Reading
6. Copyright

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