[Maxine Kumin] is not much anthologized or discussed, and I suspect that many readers have been aware of her, as I was until recently, only as a name. At any rate, if there are such readers, I have good news for them: Kumin is very much worth discovering, and [Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief and Why Can't We Live Together Like Civilized Human Beings?] are an excellent introduction. (p. 1)

The arrangement [of Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief] is reverse chronological, beginning with the latest work and ending with the earliest; and selections from the later volumes are … generous, including 31 poems from the most recent as against nine from the earliest. I am glad to report that this heavy emphasis on the recent work seems fully justified, on the grounds both of quality and of contemporary resonance.

Many of these later poems are very much...