Otherwise: New and Selected PoemsOtherwise collects a lifetime's work of poetry by one of our most cherished poets. Opening with twenty 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 shortly before her death in April 1995. This extensive collection 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 at the poet's New Hampshire home. The shadow of depression in Jane Kenyon's verse has the force of a spiritual presence-- a god, demon, angel. Yet her work emphasizes the constant effort of her imagination to redeem her suffering. As her husband Donald 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." "Jane Kenyon is our Akhmatova. She will be read and remembered here as Akhmatova is read and remembered over there. For this we give no thanks because the gift is beyond thanks. But how deeply we are indebted!" Jane Kenyon was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1947. She published four collections of poetry and translated the poetry of Anna Akhmatova. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN Voelcker Award, and was featured with her husband Donald Hall in the Emmy Award-winning Bill Moyers special, "A Life Together." She died in April 1995 after fifteen months of struggle with leukemia. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 31
... head as she pushed and called ; her cries went out over the still - lush fields . First came the front feet , then the blossom - nose , shell - pink and glistening ; and then the broad forehead , flopping black ears , and neck .... She ...
... head its head had grown too large . Homesick My clothes and hair smell stale , and more 169 GERANIUM /
... head on my foot . Sometimes the sound of his breathing saves my life - in and out , in and out ; a pause , a long sigh .... 7 PARDON A piece of burned meat wears my clothes , speaks in my voice , dispatches obligations haltingly , or ...