When diane middlebrook began the research for her biography of anne sexton (1928–74), she interviewed maxine kumin twice. Kumin and Sexton had been great friends and collaborators, and Kumin wrote the introduction to Sexton's Complete Poems (1981). The excerpt below is based on Middlebrook's typed transcript of a recording of a conversation that took place in Kumin's home on 9 October 1980. I abridged the transcript and submitted it to Kumin for her approval. The ellipses are part of the transcript, but the bracketed interpolations are mine. The complete interviews Middlebrook conducted for Anne Sexton: A Biography will be deposited in the Feminist Theory Archives of the Pembroke Center at Brown University.