Worth reading---but the politically topical poems are weaker than the rest

Still to Mow by Maxine Kumin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wanted to give this collection a higher rating than a 3, but the middle section particularly and other politically polemical poems were not of the usual quality I expect of Maxine Kumin. Then again, you have such terribly poignant lines as:

"We try to live gracefully
and at peace with our imagined deaths but in truth we go forward
stumbling, afraid of the dark,
of the cold, and of the great overwhelming
loneliness of being last."

in describing a long marriage with both elderly and nearing their ends.

I recommend reading for the best of the poems. The more topical can be skipped or scanned.

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