Jane Kenyon : the making of a poet / Dana Greene.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greene, Dana, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women poets, American--Biography.

Women poets, American.

Poets laureate--New Hampshire--Biography.

Poets laureate.

Kenyon, Jane.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (248 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : Dana Greene, [2023]

Summary:

"Pleasure-loving, sarcastic, stubborn, determined, erotic, deeply sad--Jane Kenyon's complexity and contradictions found expression in luminous poems that continue to attract a passionate following. Dana Greene draws on a wealth of personal correspondence and other newly available materials to delve into the origins, achievement, and legacy of Kenyon's poetry and separate the artist's life story from that of her husband, the award-winning poet Donald Hall. Impacted by relatives' depression during her isolated childhood, Kenyon found poetry at college, where writers like Robert Bly encouraged her development. 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. Immersed in poetry, Kenyon wrote about women's lives, nature, death, mystical experiences, and melancholy--becoming, in her own words, an "advocate of the inner life." Her breakthrough in the 1980s brought acclaim as "a born poet" and appearances in the New Yorker and elsewhere. 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. Prestigious fellowships, high-profile events, residencies, and media interviews had propelled her career to new heights when leukemia cut her life short and left her husband the loving but flawed curator of her memory and legacy. Revelatory and insightful, Jane Kenyon offers the first full-length biography of the elusive poet and the unquiet life that shaped her art"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Turning inward

Enlivened by poetry

Donald Hall, "rockstar"

Marriage by default

House of the ancestors

The community of Wilmot

The muses

Finding her way

A double solitude

Streaming light and death

The boat of quiet hours

Waiting

A moment in middle age

The coming evening

Widening vision

The poet laureate of depression

Poetry matters

The busiest year

Deciding to live

Annus horribilis

"Please don't die"

Falling into light

The aftermath

Acclaim

Advocate for the inner life.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Greene, Dana Jane Kenyon

ISBN:

9780252054983

0252054989

OCLC:

1390748934