The fields of Maxine Kumin's new book of poems, House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate, are fusions of the external and internal worlds a poet must confront. They are her gardens and she as poet has been about naming their flora and fauna. Kumin has said that the poet must be "terribly specific about naming things … naming things that already exist, and making them new just because the names are so specific … bringing them back to the world's attention … dealing with names that are small and overlooked." (p. 108)
Kumin doesn't miss a speck. Her drive for detail and her compulsion to name recall Thoreau. Her poems speak to us of "wet burls of earthworms" ("Up From the Earth") and the "gaggle of gnats" ("Amanda Dreams She Has Died and Gone to the Elysian Fields") that "housekeeps in her" horse's "ears."…
