Maxine Kumin reads "Woodchucks" and Lucille Clifton reads "cruelty. don't talk to me about cruelty".

Maxine Kumin's work often focuses on rural life (she lives on a farm in New Hampshire); her 1972 book, Up Country: Poems of New England, won the Pulitzer Prize. Kumin has served as Poet Laureate and as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In addition to poetry, she has published many children's books.

Lucille Clifton's terse, witty lyrics recall such episodes as growing up Black when Shirley Temple was all the rage. Clifton is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a former Poet Laureate of the State of Maryland. She is a Professor at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Her 2000 volume, Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, won the National Book Award.