Word: sexton
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...Kumin and Sexton first met in 1957, when the two women—both of whom were housewives in the same suburb, Newton—enrolled in a poetry writing workshop at the Boston Center for Adult Education. Kumin says that she was initially “a little wary” of Sexton, who came to the workshop in high heels, with pancake makeup on her face and flowers in her hair. And according to Kumin, the wariness was mutual: “She [Sexton] said ‘Maxine Kumin was the frump of frumps...
...pretty soon it was obvious to me that she had an enormous talent,” Kumin says of Sexton. “We were destined to be soul mates...
...Kumin says that Sexton “gave me the courage to write openly about my feelings—I think I had been a rather academic, Latinate poet.” Kumin had become a formalist in part from her experience selling light verse to glossy magazines. As Sexton helped Kumin unwind, Kumin helped Sexton “see where she needed structure...
...Sexton visited Kumin’s home for lunch on October 4, 1974. Later that day, Sexton would fill her own Boston garage with carbon monoxide and asphyxiate herself...
...Kumin particularly mourns the demise of the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study, once a vibrant center for female scholars where both she and Sexton served as fellows in the early 1960s. The current Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, she says, is but a shadow of its former incarnation...