Full Description
It is a testament to the enduring power andbeauty of Jane Kenyon's poetry that many people even those not particularly interested inpoetry know her work. What forces andinfluences shaped Kenyon's work? And whatshaped her as a person and a poet? These arethe questions John Timmerman seeks to answerin "Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life.
In the opening chapters Timmerman gives avivid portrait of Kenyon, one made possible bythe use of previously unpublished journals, personalpapers, and the recollections of her husband, the poet Donald Hall. Timmerman enriches thisdramatic portrait by exploring, volume by volume, the form and substance of Kenyon's work.By frequently examining the multiple draftsthat Kenyon wrote in the process of reaching afinished poem, Timmerman reveals how she refinedideas, images, and language until a poemwas honed to its essence. She was especially interestedin the "luminous particular, " the arrestingimage that would focus a poem. She also tookcare to use simple, grounded language andnatural objects and events often drawing onand reflecting on the life she lived at Eagle PondFarm in rural New Hampshire.Throughout her life Kenyon struggled withdepression, but she never let it define her or herwork. She also struggled with her faith almostconstantly, but she was able to write poems ofgreat beauty and spiritual consolation. Yet Kenyonwas cut down in the prime of her writing life byleukemia, and Timmerman ends the volume byexploring Hall's mourning of her death in"Without, a powerful collection of poems. Thisfull-orbed, often moving study of Kenyon's lifeshows why her literary voice continues to touchreaders with its beauty, grace, andpower.
