Bearing witness Quotes by Maxine Kumin

Poetry makes nothing happen. It survives in the valley of its saying.

— Maxine Kumin

There is an extraordinary degree of amity among Washington poets. They hang together. You would be hard pressed to find that in Manhattan.

— Maxine Kumin

I don't think I've ever felt terribly comfortable writing about my body. First of all, I think I took my body for granted for…

— Maxine Kumin

The time on either side of now stands fast.

— Maxine Kumin

God serves the choosy. They know what to want.

— Maxine Kumin

And the pond's stillness nippled as if by rain instead is pocked with life.

— Maxine Kumin

Women are not supposed to have uteruses, especially in poems.

— Maxine Kumin

To build is to dwell.

— Maxine Kumin

... people get confidential at midnight.

— Maxine Kumin

I would not recommend poetry as a career. In the first place, it's impossible in this time and place - in this culture -…

— Maxine Kumin

A lot of people use the dictionary to find out how to spell words.

— Maxine Kumin

So many poems you go into and come up empty.

— Maxine Kumin

It is important to act as if bearing witness matters.

— Maxine Kumin

Everything pays for growing tame.

— Maxine Kumin

When Sleeping Beauty wakes up, she is almost fifty years old

— Maxine Kumin