Maxine Kumin, who has earned a reputation for poems of such bright beatitude that she is an unlikely bard of the geriatric, has entitled her new collection Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief, as if in honor of "the aging poets, old friends" she refers to in one poem.

This sprint toward the finish line wouldn't be surprising in a young poet (or young as well-known poets go) habitually prone to the death watch, a poet, say, with Galway Kinnell's inclination for the volcanic nightmare, or Louise Glück's sense of doom. But until now, Kumin has observed the simple particularities of country life and committed herself to conserving nature with an optimism that has bound her to New England transcendentalism.

Harold Bloom (never mind his Romantic biases) has often said that American poets after the mid-19th century are either Emersonian or radically anti-Emersonian, either forgiving...