Contains thirty-one poems under the headings: In the family--Out there--On the farm.

In these new poems, her eleventh collection, Maxine Kumin expands on the themes that have engaged her most strongly. Family connections resurface as she imagines a letter to her mother, long dead, or assesses the shift of responsibility between generations (" ... they still love us who overtake us"). Her dialogue with the natural world - especially with the narrow divide between human and animal - continues, most notably in "Deja Vu", where she pays...

Nearly twenty years ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin transplanted her urban family to an overgrown New Hampshire farm. Her latest prose work, a graceful and appealing blend of ten essays and eight stories, grew from the exertions and exhilarations of country living. Now a consummate horsewoman, Kumin here revels in the long-awaited birth of a foal; the rehabilitation of an abused mare; and such daily pleasures as the antics of Rilke,...