Collected Poems

Description

---

Customer Reviews

Love this Woman
I love my Wife more than my next breath. I read this book before, after and during Donald Halls, "Without: Poems." It was the most dramatic, heart wrenching writing I have ever read. Both of them, together. That is how you should read it. Even though you can't allow Kenyon's work to be tinged by her early death, you need to read these together. Kenyon opens her soul to the changes in her life, her husband, his family, how his family home becomes the fabric of her art, and the beauty she finds hidden in the shadows of the land during her dark nights.

I am also a person of that twilight horizon. The edge is always near to me, but like Kenyon my love draws me back to the morning light.

There is the notice of Life in this book.

2009-02-20 (Louisville, Ky USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

a masterpiece
This is a book I read three times in a row because I could not stand parting with it, and by parting I simply mean putting back on my shelves.

Jane Kenyon's style reminds me of Billy Collins's (especially "The Trouble With Poetry"): the poems are accessible and yet carefully crafted, they tell a clear story in mesmerizing language. It is obvious that Kenyon would have become a poet as well-known as Collins and her husband Donald Hall, had she not died prematurely; one feels blessed to have this collection at last, a decade after her death.

Kenyon displays enormous talent. She writes timeless poems about her life in Maine, her bouts of depression, Hall and his illness (he was sick before she was), and the disease that will ultimately kill her. Her love for Hall permeates her work - the quiet strength of it is truly inspiring. Any reader will find in this collection many poems that speak to him (or her). People who enjoy reflecting in nature and paying attention to life's little details will particularly cherish this book.

2009-02-19 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Let Evening Come
This book is a fine tribute to the short life of Jane Kenyon, whose beautiful and memorable poetry has taught me much, enriched my life, and is such a comfort. It is the right book to have near at hand when only a poem will do--and Jane Kenyon never fails to have just the right words.

2008-08-24 | mam_li (Long Island) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

---

Intense honesty, profound simplicity
For everyone who thinks poetry is not for them, who fears that poetry is only for the literary critic - that unapproachable allegory and hidden meaning are the only pathways to "true poetry" - please meet Jane Kenyon. The beauty of Jane Kenyon's work lies in its intense honesty, its profound simplicity, and its accessibility. Through her poetry, she opens her door to us and invites us into her life and her home as an intimate friend. And she speaks to us as a close friend would - taking on subjects from the very ordinary and mundane ("The Socks") to the profound and heart-breaking ("Fear of Death Awakens Me"). No matter what the topic, Kenyon peels it open with keen insight and exquisite eloquence.

If you have been introduced to Kenyon by "Otherwise" or by poem-a-day projects such as Poetry 180 and you wonder if the totality of her work can be that good, the answer is yes! Collected Poems is filled with outstanding gems that you will cherish for years to come.

2007-11-18 (Eugene, OR USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

---

Ferociously beautiful, silence itself
In his American Poetry Review profile of Jane Kenyon, Liam Rector identifies two attributes of the poet that I found particularly striking and that stayed with me while reading this wonderful collection. He writes that "Jane was one of those women who became ferociously beautiful in middle age" and that she, in comparison to others in their literary circles, was "silence itself."

To read Jane Kenyon in this collected and chronological format is such a joy, as her work is intensely personal. Coming to the end, the reader feels as if a life has been shared, one that is simple yet so rich, gratefully and gracefully lived, always acutely aware. She writes about her marriage, her illness, her husband's cancer, her friends, her home, her depression, her travels, her world. There is an element of domesticity and femininity in Jane Kenyon's verse - she can make hanging out a line of laundry seem like an act of worship - but the overriding motivation is quiet observation, giving pause and space for those lovely transient moments, whispered failings, private joys, intimate discoveries.

This is a lovely book and will be a treasured collection for years.

2006-01-02 (Brooklyn, NY) | Helpful Votes: 12 | Rating: 5

---

Constance: Poems

Description

---

Customer Reviews

Intense Connection To The Natural World
Jane Kenyon was a much celebrated poet in her lifetime. She was born in Ann Arbor MI and attended the University of Michigan. Her poems appeared in such notable magazines as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, and The New Republic. In addition to Constance, she had three other books of poetry published: The Boat of Quiet Hours, From Room to Room, and Let Evening Come. Ms. Kenyon's life was cut short by leukemia which claimed her in 1995.

How does one go about reviewing something as intimate as a person's poetic take on life, nature, illness, and the workings of the inner soul? I hope this reviewer does so with grace and respect for the life that is chronicled in the poems of this remarkably gifted woman. Each of Kenyon's books of published poems resounds with her intense connection to the natural world. And yet, while each book of poetry is grounded in this world, her poems resonate with an "other-worldliness" that is at once captivating, gut wrenching, and surreal.

I was first introduced to Jane Kenyon and her poetry by a writing friend who mentioned that Ms Kenyon had written a poem titled "Peonies At Dusk." This came about because of a story that included my mother's peonies in the garden details. And so, I set out to find this particular poem. What I discovered was so much more than a simple poem about a flower that evokes many personal memories. I found an intensely passionate woman who wasn't afraid to put her soul out on the page for all to see. In an ecclectic grouping of poems, Constance addresses among other things, the Civil War battle of Gettysburg, coats, flowers, prescription drugs, human frailty, illness, and a fiercely wise understanding of the essence of time well spent in a life that is growing shorter with each passing day.

Some of her poems are whimsical, some are astute observations of the world around us, and some enter that place that only those who have dealt with life threatening illness can truly understand...such is the case in the poem titled "Otherwise." Haunting in its simplicity, this poem takes its readers into that special place--it forces readers to realize that simple, ordinary acts of day to day existance could be, and ultimately will be, different in the face of serious illness. To look at such things as having a meal with a spouse, or standing up on two strong legs and realize that these might well be gone from the life one knows is a sobering experience. To be able to put into words the fact of knowing that things "might have been different" is a gift. It reminds readers to look for the positives in each day for someday those things could be taken away...for, as Jane Kenyon says so succinctly, "But one day, I know, it will be otherwise."

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

2008-03-06 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Like Kenyon?
Jane is something like a male Raymond Carver. A quiet powerful poet. Stunt free poetry that reaches its climax minutes after you finish reading. I owned this book. Once you read it, you'll want to read all of her poems. I suggest you skip "Constance" and buy The Collected Poems instead. All the poems from Constance are in there along with the rest of her published poetry.

2006-04-13 | Guitarist, poetry geek, haiku junkie, tequila test pilot (Northern California) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

---

"Constance" is a soft yet powerful collection of poetry.
Jane Kenyon's "Constance" is a wonderful, breath-taking collection of poems. In it, Kenyon captures both the inner workings of the human mind and the intricacies of daily life. For example, the poem "Potato" is not just about a rotten potato thrown out to the compost heap; it also reveals some of the speaker's characteristics.

One of my favorite poems is "Not Writing" which captures the struggle of writer's block through the imagery of a wasp. Another powerful piece is "Having it Out with Melancholy" which reveals some of the struggles of chronic depression.

The poems all use the English language skillfully and beautifully, one example from "Peonies at Dusk" is: "I draw a blossom near, and bending close / search it as a woman searches / a loved one's face." Here the connection between a loved one's face and a peony is tightly drawn, ushering the reader into the speaker's world.

Although I have not read all of Kenyon's books yet, I have read "Let Evening Come" which is also an wonderful example of Kenyon's quiet strength with words.

1999-04-16 | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 5

---

Otherwise: New & Selected Poems

Description

Otherwise collects a lifetime's work by one of contemporary poetry's most cherished talents. Opening with twenty new poems and including generous selections from Jane Kenyon's four previous books—From Room to Room, The Boat of Quiet Hours, Let Evening Come, and Constance—this collection was selected and arranged by Kenyon herself—alongside her husband, the esteemed poet Donald Hall—shortly before her death in April 1995.

This extensive gathering reveals a scrupulously crafted body of work in which poem after poem achieves a rare and somber grace. Light and shade are never far apart in these telling narratives of life and love and work at the poet's rural New Hampshire home. The shadow of depression in Kenyon's verse, which grew much darker and longer at certain intervals, has the force and heft of a spiritual presence—a god, demon, angel. Yet her work emphasizes the constant effort of her imagination to confront and even find redemption in suffering. However quiet or domesticated or subtle in her moods and methods, Kenyon was a poet who sought to discover the extraordinary within the ordinary, and her poems continue to make this discovery. As Hall writes in the afterword to Otherwise, we share "her joy in the body and the creation, in flowers, music, and paintings, in hayfields and a dog."

---

This collection stands as something of a tribute to Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995 at the age of 48. Otherwise contains 20 new poems plus selected works from her four previous collections. The situations from which her lively writing arise often came from her daily life in and around the New Hampshire farm where she lived with her husband. The simple settings provides fertile ground for her richness of language. "As late as yesterday ice preoccupied the pond--dark, half-melted, waterlogged. Then it sank in the night, one piece, taking winter with it. And afterward everything seems simple and good." Beautiful, gracious poetry.

---

Customer Reviews

OMG--It gets better!
I thought The Boat of Quiet Hours was the highest bar of poetry. Then came Otherwise. The cream at the top of the glass milk bottle.
Tree Swenson's cover design enhances the poetry and intrigues me with understated visuals.
Get ready for your heart to break open and grow if you buy this.
Thanks, Jane, for leaving us with this book.

2009-12-13 | Linnie (Brooklyn and Connecticut) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Great product & service
Book was received promptly and in new, perfect condition!
Thank you again for the great service.

2006-02-28 (Dublin, CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Poetry for the human experience
It was this anthology of poetry that transformed my mother from a woman who dislikes poetry to a woman who reads it every day. I read her one poem and got her hooked. Jane Kenyen speaks directly to her reader, using simple images and plain language, capturing experiences that often feel familiar and sometimes reminding us of their meaning and significance. This is not poetry that could be shouted at a poetry slam or puzzled over by scholars looking for allusions to Sanskrit texts. This is poetry about our lives, about burying the cat, ironing a tablecloth, saying goodbye to guests, winter weather, faith, sadness, and love. I love poetry, but sometimes it feels daunting and inaccessible. Jane Kenyon writes like I am her guest, sitting at her kitchen table, and she has a moment to share.

2003-12-20 | aj_brown (Albuquerque, NM United States) | Helpful Votes: 19 | Rating: 5

---

Bright Stars on a Winter Night
Jane Kenyon's OTHERWISE is perhaps the best collection of American poetry in the past decade. With her accessible and illuminating poems, Ms. Kenyon captures the essence of life in all its ordinariness and extraordinariness. "Let Evening Come," for example, is a nearly perfect gem -- thoughtful, concise, movingly eloquent. Throughout this collection, the poet demonstrates a remarkable clarity of vision; her diction and meter are gorgeous, her wit and insight profound yet never burdensome. Whether recalling a scene from her childhood, an hour in winter, a cancer treatment, a death in the family, or a walk with the dog, Ms. Kenyon inspires, illuminates, and entertains.

2000-11-14 (MI USA) | Helpful Votes: 9 | Rating: 5

---

Captivating and Honest
I absolutely love this book. Jane Kenyon's poetry describes some of the most simple, daily activities in a way that brings out their hidden beauty and grace. You can sense the careful observation and truthfullness of what she describes, yet as you read you can interpret the symbolism behind certain passages and the realizations there aswell. I feel so deeply connected with this book. Her poetry speaks the words we cannot say. You won't regret buying this book.

2000-03-10 (USA) | Helpful Votes: 9 | Rating: 5

---

From Room to Room: Poems

Description

"From Room to Room" is Jane Kenyon's first book. The poems are full of respect for a life deeply felt. Her vision apprehends the mystery beneath everyday circumstances and objects, from the bird feeder, to the clothespin and the thimble, to the edges of the map. The book's final section consists of translations of six poems by Anna Akhmatova, whose lyric grace and force is akin to Kenyon's own.

---

Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life

Description

It is a testament to the enduring power and beauty of Jane Kenyon's poetry that many people - even those not particularly interested in poetry - know her work. What forces and influences shaped Kenyon's writing' And what shaped her as a person and a poet' These are the questions that John Timmerman seeks to answer in Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life. In the opening chapters Timmerman beautifully limns the story of Kenyon's life, drawing on unpublished journals and papers of hers and recollections by her husband, the poet Donald Hall. To show how her art grew out of her life, Timmerman proceeds to explore, volume by volume, the form and substance of Kenyon's work. By frequently examining the multiple drafts that Kenyon wrote in the process of reaching a finished poem, Timmerman reveals how she winnowed and refined ideas, images, and language until a poem was honed to its essence. She was especially interested in the "luminous particular," the arresting image that would focus a poem. She also took care to use simple, grounded language and natural objects and events - often drawing on and reflecting on the life she lived at Eagle Pond Farm in rural New Hampshire. Throughout her life Kenyon struggled with depression, but she never let it define her or her work. She also struggled with her faith almost constantly, yet her faith was "unrelenting," according to Timmerman, and she still wrote poems of great beauty and spiritual consolation. Her poetry, even when very personal, reached out - and still reaches out - to the reader, establishing that vital thread of human connection. Indeed, as Timmerman says, Kenyon's poems are "soundings of the human soul". Kenyon was cut down in the prime of her writing life by leukemia, and Timmerman concludes by exploring Hall's mourning of her death in Without, a wrenching collection of poems. But Kenyon's voice lives on in her work, and Timmerman's insightful, often moving study shows why

---

Customer Reviews

Great study a a life and poetry
This is a great book. I loved the first several chapters detailing Jane Kenyon's life and marriage, The following chapters break down each of her books with thoughtful insight that both hearkens back to her life story, and expands on her fantastic use of poetic tools and techniques. I emailed the author while reading and told him of my excitement and appreciation for his work. He told me that, of all his books, he had the most emotional connection to this book. It is very clear he was both academically and emotionally committed to Jane Kenyon and Don Hall.

2009-11-30 | book finishing challenged (Charlotte, NC United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

False Advertising
The problem with this book is simple: it is not what it claims to be. In every way, from the title to the dust-jacket materials, this work is presented as a biography--specifically, a critical biography--of Jane Kenyon. It is not. It is a straightforward piece of literary criticism and analysis, rather simple in its approach, and as such perhaps useful for students in Introduction to Poetry courses which utilize Kenyon's work. It reminds me, in fact, of nothing so much as the old Twayne's series of introductory-level criticism.

There is some biographical material here, but it is entirely contained in the book's first two chapters, and is not especially illuminating (the teenage journal entries are the only point of interest).

It speaks poorly of this publishing house that such an overt attempt has been made to disguise the contents of this book. As another reviewer on this page stated, Jane Kenyon deserves a real biographer. Those who purchase "Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life" are bound to be disappointed, as I was.

2003-07-01 | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 2

---

Satisfying - Couldn't Put it Down
As someone who adores Jane Kenyon and her writings, I looked forward to this book for months, and wasn't disappointed. It was especially enlightening to read excerpts from her teenage journals and see the early writings of the woman she would turn into; she never lost her sense of self, humor and determinedness.
Those who know her poems will be delighted to learn of the early drafts and background to their writing. Kenyon's husband, Donald Hall, also adds pertinent commentary. This book will reward you and send you back to the poems and writings of this wonderful woman.

2002-11-15 (Northampton, MA United States) | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

---

It Should Have Been Otherwise
As a reader who has had to buy Otherwise several times to replace
those copies enthusiastically given to friends and acquaintances,
I was looking forward to reading what I hoped would be an
insightful biography. I will not try to express
my disappointment other than to say that after about a hundred
pages I threw this book into the wastebasket in disgust. Buy "A
Hundred White Daffodils" which is quoted from so often and
so extensively one suspects how much effort was put toward
any other source. Apart from the quotes, the book seems more
written by a freshman student than anyone else. Jane Kenyon
deserves a good biographer. This book is an embarrassment.

2002-10-14 (Illinois) | Helpful Votes: 13 | Rating: 1

---

The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon

Product Details

• Condition: New
• ISBN13: 9780618773626
• Notes: BUY WITH Aplomb, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and use to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

---

Customer Reviews

A beautiful mosaic
I am in the middle of this book, after having read Jane Kenyon's collection, Otherwise, and Donald Hall's collection, Without. For days I dove into their poetry and was overcome by the love they shared not only with each other, but with their readers. I am also grateful to them both for having the courage to write about all the difficult things: depression, cancer, death, mental illness, sexual frustration and fear.

Coming to this book after the poetry puts me in a place where I find myself saying out loud "Oh, yes..." Mr. Hall's plain and straightforward narrative fills in between the poems the stories of how they came to be as a couple, how they loved, lived and saw one another through whatever arose. The cadence of each chapter moving forward and back, forward and back creates a mosaic that is at once joyous and horrifying. Each chapter holds the other up and together they make this story buoyant and beautiful. I for one am grateful to Mr. Hall for opening up his memories of his and Jane's life for me to witness and cherish all the same. Thank you.

2009-10-05 (Hawaii) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

Heartbreaking, eloquent and real
Although this is so overtly a chronicle of losing a loved one, about the horrors of cancer and its various treatments, it is also a very real picture of what makes a good and lasting marriage. Although Hall and Kenyon knew the odds of their union lasting were very slim, given the 19-year age difference and her bipolar illness, they took the plunge, Hall noting that "all marriages start in ignorance and need; what matters is what you do after you marry." Fifty-five pages later, Hall affirms what makes their marriage last -

"What we did: love. We did not spend our days gazing into each other's eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages ... Each member of a couple is separate. The two come together in double attention."

He speaks further of what, for them, constituted those "third things" - John Keats, the BSO, children, pets, or Eagle Pond. The twenty-three years Hall and Kenyon had together had their ups and downs to be sure, but in the end love prevailed. This book is Hall's very personal love song, written just for Jane. Read it and learn what love is really all about. - Tim Bazzett, author of Pinhead: A Love Story

2008-12-29 | ReedCityBoy (Reed City, MI USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

---

Most Intimate Memoir
The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon
This compeling memoir took me into the most intimate life of these two outstanding poets. The details are such that I felt that I was actually a part of their lives. Jane Kenyon's life and death are contrasted in words that bring her to life by one that knows her best. A most excellent read.

2008-07-28 (Macon, GA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Best Day and Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyan
Donald Hall's memoir of health and illness with his wife Jane Kenyon has stood in my mind years after I read this book. It is an understanding of issues in living through a bout of illness, of survival to regain health, or the fall when one loses the fight.

Above all the book is of a poet who loves another fellow poet.

But I think poetry is secondary to loving a wife who shared his home and passions for animals, people, words and social engagements to be with people who appreciated their love of literature and the love in the marriage.

2007-09-24 | maisy chan (seattle, WA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Very moving memoir
I thought this book was a wonderful, loving tribute to the author's wife. :)

2007-08-29 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---