Women, Animals, and Vegetables: Essays and Stories

by Maxine Kumin

A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet recounts the birth of a foal, the rehabilitation of an abused mare, the beauty of home-grown vegetables, the organic nature of writing, and other aspects of life on her New Hampshire farm.

Genres: Essays, Poetry

299 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Maxine Kumin's 17th poetry collection, published in the spring of 2010, is Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010. Her awards include the Pulitzer and Ruth Lilly Poetry Prizes, the Poets’ Prize, and the Harvard Arts and Robert Frost Medals. A former US poet laureate, she and her husband lived on a farm in New Hampshire. Maxine Kumin died in 2014.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non-fiction: 3.5
Fiction: 5 stars. Kumin creates beautiful characters, and "The Match" may be one of my favorite short stories of all time.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ran across this trolling the library. The title caught me because of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The first half of the book is about her love affair with the garden (800 pounds of produce), dogs, horses(Hallelujah, Praise Be, and Amen). The second half is short stories. All good.

[Melody · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another one I bailed out of just under halfway through.
I like Kumin's poetry a lot. Her prose leaves me unmoved.