17 pages • 34 minutes read
Maxine KuminIn the Park
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1989A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Preciousness of Existence
Death is the most prominent theme in Kumin’s “In the Park.” Introduced in the first two lines, the speaker establishes a popular tenant of Buddhism as related to what happens following one’s death: reincarnation. Rooted in the mysterious unknown, the poem recognizes that death (and what follows), regardless of who one is or what they believe in, is a surprise for everyone. While Kumin cites Buddhism in the second line, Kumin’s take on death isn’t necessarily tied to one religion. Rather, the poem explores death as a unifying event that all living beings partake in. This is exemplified in Stanza 2 with the story of Roscoe Black’s grizzly bear attack in Glacier National Park. Here, death is a heavy bear lying heart-to-heart on top of Black. Death seems imminent. Yet, the bear saunters off and Black lives.
As a theme, the preciousness of existence is repeatedly returned to. Stanza 3, which highlights the Old Testament’s characters and merging of worlds (the living and the afterlife; earth and the celestial), comments on what one knows about death through scripture or the past: “Heaven’s an airy Somewhere” (Line 23) and as for Hell, “little is made of it” (Line 25). Rather than a choice, death is something that happens to one. It is inevitable and uncontrollable. As with the case of Roscoe Black, Kumin’s poem argues that when faced with death, the ideal response is to lie down and accept it—and see what comes next.
Death and Rebirth
Like Kumin’s attention to death, rebirth (or a return to life) is also a central theme in “In the Park.” Buddhists believe in a cycle of death and rebirth, which they call samsara. When one dies, their energy passes into another life form. Karma, or intentional actions, determine the type of life one is reborn into with good actions resulting in a positive rebirth and bad actions resulting in a negative rebirth. The goal, however, is to escape samsara—or the constant cycle of death and rebirth—and achieve the ultimate enlightenment, also known as nirvana.
In Kumin’s poem, the speaker highlights certain aspects of the Buddhist faith that pertain to samsara. For instance, the number of days (“forty-nine” [Line 1]) that one has between death and reincarnation. Buddhists, who believe that nothing is permanent and that everything changes, recognize the fluidity of existence, even between lives. While one’s actions determine what one is reincarnated as, at the end of the day there’s “no choosing what to come back as” (Line 27).
As a cycle, rebirth helps one achieve a clear view of the world as it truly is. “In the Park” is a poem that seeks to encourage its reader to accept death as an event and look forward to the opportunity to live again. As a nature poet, Kumin’s use of Buddhism highlights her respect and love for all living life; this is a common belief in Buddhism, which teaches against the harming of other living beings, for one never knows what one might return to life as—be it a worm, a zinnia, or an oak tree.
The Mysterious Unknown
Mystery or the unknown is a pervading theme in “In the Park.” The unknown appears in many forms throughout the poem, from what occurs between the time of life and death (as indicated in Lines 3-7), to what happens after death itself, to whether one is reborn and returns to the world. The mysterious and unknown also occurs in other forms, too, throughout the poem. For instance, in the story of Roscoe Black, they occur in the mysterious circumstance of his survival. “In the Park” argues that life is full of unknowns and uncertainties. They even occur, Kumin’s wittily argues, in the difference between “lie and lay,” (Line 14) which she claims, “the whole world / confuses” (Lines 14-15).
The poem conflates east and west religions, that of Buddhism and the Old Testament, both of which have conflicting views of what happens following death. Yet, Kumin’s speaker highlights the vague mysteriousness surrounding the events of the Old Testament in which “God talks to Moses, Noah, / Samuel, and they answer” (Lines 18-19) and “People confer with angels” (Line 20). The worlds between life and death appear liminal in the Old Testament, as they do in Buddhism with one’s constant return to life.
As a theme, mystery or the unknown capitalizes on other prominent themes in Kumin’s poem, primarily death. The only certainty in the poem seems to be spoken in the final lines: “When the grizzly bear appears, he lays/lies down / on atheist and zealot. In the pitch-dark / each of us waits for him in Glacier Park” (Lines 28-30).
