From the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, a stunning collection of poems that course with the rhythms of nature. A poet of piercing revelations and arresting imagery, Kumin is "unforgettable, indispensable" (New York Times Book Review). In And Short the Season she muses on mortality: her own and that of the earth. Always deeply personal, always political, these poems blend myth and modernity, fecundity and death, and the violence and tenderness of humankind. From "Whereof the Gift Is Small" And short the season, first rubythroat in the fading lilacs, alyssum in bloom, a honeybee bumbling in the bleeding heart on my gelding’s grave while beetles swarm him underground. Wet feet, wet cuffs, little flecks of buttercup on my sneaker toes, bluets, violets crowding out the tufts of rich new grass the horses nose and nibble like sleepwalkers held fast— brittle beauty—might this be the last?

Set in a small town that houses little more than a research lab and an engineering school, the body of the lab's director is found in a pit used for maternal deprivation experiments with monkeys. A few days later, a graduate student is found murdered as well. Are these deaths connected? And who's responsible for these murders? Written by one of America's greatest poets, this mystery is a scathing social commentary with a criminal twist. Maxine Kumin is the author of poetry, novels, short stories, essays and a number of children's books. She has received several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Poets' Prize, the Levinson Prize, and most recently, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. She lives in Warner, New Hampshire.