"No poet has more closely woven poetry into her daily life, a poetry that is personal but never confessional; she guarded her privacy and that of her three children and husband of nearly 70 years with the clear knowledge that though there was nothing to hide, there was plenty to protect. What her art, as affectionate as it was astringent, required—first and last—was form: for her, formal prosody was essential; it was enabling."
Eleanor Wilner on Maxine Kumin