Maxine Kumin's birthday should be a New Hampshire state holiday. In the next few weeks, the Warner resident will turn 80 and turn out her 15th book of poetry, "Jack and Other New Poems." Her poetry pals and contemporaries from around New England will gather at the Concord Library to join her for a reading, birthday party and book launch.

Eighty years' view of the world enriches the piety of Maxine Kumin. A laundry list of her life's experience encompasses being born during the Great Depression; experiencing the New Deal and its unprecedented social changes; the first moon landing; the rise of Civil Rights, Animal Rights, Equal Rights and Feminism; and five to 10 wars (depending on whether you're counting only the official wars or the unofficial ones as well).

Her life's personal arc encompasses graduation from Radcliffe at the verge of Harvard going co-ed; a stint as consultant to the Library of Congress (now the U.S. poet laureateship); the suicide death of her friend, Anne Sexton; a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1973; the cancer death of her friend, poet Jane Kenyon; a five-year stint as N.H. poet laureate; her own near-death experience with her horses; a near 60-year partnership with her husband Victor; countless hours at her writing desk; raising kids, horses, sheep and dogs; and years of readings and teaching students all over the world.

Speaking of wars and teaching, Kumin once shared with me a way she "twits" students. This was the first time I'd ever heard this expression. It reveals a good bit of her trickster nature and Yankee practicality: "I ask all my students to memorize poems, to commit them to memory and then recite them to the class. Many students grumble and want to know, 'Why do we have to do this?', and this is what I tell them: If ever you are a political prisoner, you'll have an internalized library to draw upon."

In her work and in conversation, Kumin shares much of what she's seen and observed. Regarding her own run as a 20th century poet, she notes, "I've seen some historic changes in the contemporary American poetry scene during my long shelf-life as a practitioner. Poetry's audience has grown in size and sophistication. Instead of a handful of presses publishing a small scattering of poetry collections, the scale and breadth of presses is astonishing. Today, hallelujah, women are taken seriously as poets, critics, translators and professors. I'm proud of our transformation and happy to have had a part in it."

Poets and pals Donald Hall, Cynthia Huntington, Wes McNair and Cleopatra Mathis will gather to honor Kumin on Monday, June 6 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Concord Public Library, 45 Green St., Concord, in a birthday and book release celebration, co-sponsored by Gibson's Bookstore. Kumin will read her poetry and answer questions. A reception with birthday cake will follow. Poets will stay to autograph work and sing happy birthday, no doubt.