Biography of jane kenyon

In Let Evening Come, her third published collection—and one that found the poet taking what Poetry essayist Paul Breslin called "a darker turn"—Kenyon explored nature's cycles in other ways: the fall of light from day to dusk to night, and the cycles of relationships with family and friends throughout a long span of years brought to a close by death.

Let Evening Come "shows [Kenyon] at the height of her powers," according to Muske in a review of the volume for the New York Times Book Review, with the poet's "descriptive skills … as notable as her dramatic ones. Her rendering of natural settings, in lines of well-judged rhythm and simple syntax, contribute to the [volume's] memorableness. Constance began Kenyon's study of depression, and her work in this regard has been compared with that of the late poet Sylvia Plath.

Comparing the two, Breslin wrote that "Kenyon's language is much quieter, less self-dramatizing" than that of Plath, and where the earlier poet "would give herself up, writing her lyrical surrender to oblivion, … Kenyon fought to the end. In Otherwise: New and Selected Poems, a posthumous collection containing twenty poems written just prior to her death as well as several taken from her earlier books, Kenyon "chronicles the uncertainty of living as culpable, temporary creatures," according to Nation contributor Emily Gordon.

However, the gathered journalism and essays are not minor work, in the opinion of most critics. Scott Hightower, writing in Library Journal, praised the essays as "accessible, earnest, and devoid of urbane ironies. For Hightower, the volume "succeeds in illuminating a poet and woman of remarkable presence. Kenyon's longtime publisher, Graywolf Press, released in the poet's Collected Poems, a gathering of her previously published volumes of verse that, as New York Times Book Review critic Dana Goodyear wrote, is "the best argument for [Kenyon's] place in history.

Poetry, July, , Paul Breslin, review of Otherwise, pp. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

Her graduate school marriage to the middle-aged Hall and subsequent move to New Hampshire had an enormous impact on her life, moods, and creativity. Yet her ongoing success and artistic growth exacerbated strains in her marriage and failed to stave off depressive episodes that sometimes left her non-functional. Refusing to live out the stereotype of the mad woman poet, Kenyon sought treatment and confronted her illness in her work and in public while redoubling her personal dedication to finding pleasure in every fleeting moment.

It would be Kenyon's main residence until her death from leukemia at the age of forty-seven. The setting inspired stoic portraits of domestic and rural life; as essayist Gary Roberts noted in Contemporary Women Poets , her poetry was "acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies.

Latimer, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography , called it "the poetic diary of a honeymoon, in which a young wife explores the spaces between her and her husband, and her new and former homes. The poems' subjects include the gender gap, a husband's absence, and a wife examining some of his possessions. Latimer went on: "The overlay of the new on the old continues as the main character progresses through her first anniversary, chronicled in 'Year Day,' revamping room after room of her new home.

As she does so, she encounters the emblems, both universal and personal, of her female lineage, a grandmother's tablecloth here, an heirloom thimble there. Here, in Keats's terms, is a capable poet. Latimer pointed out that Keats is actually a character in Kenyon's Let Evening Come , "evoked, in the speaker's knowledgeable reconstruction of his last days, in various reposes.

This reference to Keats is refreshing on the part of Kenyon because it clarifies her awareness that she is subject, as was he, to the criticism that she is a poet's poet. She baits this criticism in her poems in which the speaker registers alarm at or resistance to public places, events, the uneducated, and the unwashed. The poems, pointedly arranged so as not to concentrate linked themes and subjects, invite a slow, unaggressive reading, one that recapitulates the rhythms of water, leaf, and wind—despite all the clamor for something more stimulating.

The cycles of nature held special significance for Kenyon, who returned to them again and again, both in her variations on Keats's ode "To Autumn," and in other pastoral verse. In Let Evening Come , the poet took what a Poetry essayist called "a darker turn," exploring nature's cycles in other ways: the fall of light from day to dusk to night, and the cycles of relationships with family and friends throughout a long span of years brought to a close by death.

Let Evening Come "shows [Kenyon] at the height of her powers," wrote Muske in a review of the volume for the New York Times Book Review , the critic adding that the poet's "descriptive skills" are "as notable as her dramatic ones. Her rendering of natural settings, in lines of well-judged rhythm and simple syntax, contribute to the [volume's] memorableness.

Constance began Kenyon's study of depression, and her work in this regard has been compared with that of the late poet Sylvia Plath. Comparing the two, Breslin wrote that "Kenyon's language is much quieter, less self-dramatizing" than that of Plath, and where the earlier poet "would give herself up, writing her lyrical surrender to oblivion, … Kenyon fought to the end.

After Kenyon and Hall had been married for some time, Hall contracted colon cancer, which spread to his liver. The prognosis for his recovery was very poor, and part of his liver was removed. As Hall's. Because we thought Don was soon to be a goner, there was something of a memorial service in this, while Don was still alive. Don accepted all this cheerfully if a bit ruefully , gratefully, and great swarms of his many friends came to speak.

Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the subject of many of his poems. She earned a B. She won a Hopwood Award at Michigan. As a university student Kenyon met poet Donald Hall ; though he was some nineteen years her senior, she married him in , and they moved to his ancestral home in Wilmot , New Hampshire.

Kenyon was New Hampshire's poet laureate when she died on April 22, , from leukemia. She spent some years translating the poems of Anna Akhmatova from Russian into English , and she championed translation as an important art that every poet should try.

Biography of jane kenyon

Kenyon's poems are filled with rural images: light streaming through a hayloft, shorn winter fields. She wrote frequently about wrestling with depression, which plagued her throughout her adult life. Kenyon's poem "Having it out with Melancholy" describes this struggle and the brief moments of happiness she felt when taking an MAOI , Nardil.