More about Jane Kenyon

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. in 1970 and her M.A. in 1972. The same year she married a teacher at the university, the poet Donald Hall. After their marriage they moved to Eagle Pond Road in Wilmont, New Hampshire, which had been the home of Hall's family for several generations.

Although Kenyon was to write joyously about her life in rural New Hampshire, she suffered from severe depression throughout her marriage, and her final poems document her struggle against leukemia. Her first book, Let Evening Come, was published in 1990. She described the quiet life she led with her husband in many poems, but she and Hall were also well known through his books about life on their farm. Shortly before her death they were the subject of a television documentary that depicted their shared life of poetry and the changing seasons of their rural countryside.

Kenyon's poetry is delicate and subtle, a poetry of shadings and quiet musings. The poet Carol Muske wrote of her, "These poems surprise beauty at every turn and capture truth at its familiar New England slant."

-Taken from Bedford/St. Martin's Poetry site

Happiness

A friend sent me a poem by Jane Kenyon yesterday. I thought it was striking and poignent and it made me go read more of her work. I had started reading her a year ago, when this friend had first sent me one of her poems, but I had forgotten. A woman who struggled with depression, who worshipped nature and the simple beauty, and who died of a blood cancer-there is a lot that resonates with me.

There's just no accounting for happiness
or the way it turns up like a prodigal ...
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who files a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town,and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
-Jane Kenyon

A.W.O.L

Why aren't there any new posts? Where have I been? I am lost in the World of Warcraft, and I am not planning to come out any time soon. I am hooked.

Check it out-VICE Magazine

I love Vice Magazine. My cousin Pete gave me the Vice Do's and Dont's book for Christmas this year. It is basically a book full of photos of people that the authors rag on, make fun of, oogle or cut into tiny little pieces. Sometimes they were so funny I pee'd a little. Sometimes they were just so disturbing that I felt my skin shrivel.

Here is a little sample "Don't".

Caption: Dressing alike is for tween twins, Norwegian new parents, and roommates that are scared of the world.

Go to www.viceland.com and read for yourself.