The Best Poems Of Jane Kenyon

“Jane Kenyon had a virtually faultless ear. She was an exquisite master of the art of poetry.” —Wendell Berry Published twenty-five years after her untimely death, The Best Poems of Jane Kenyon presents the essential work of one of America’s most cherished poets—celebrated for her tenacity, spirit, and grace. In their inquisitive explorations and direct language, Jane Kenyon’s poems disclose a quiet certainty in the natural world and a lifelong dialogue with her faith and her questioning of it. As a crucial aspect of these beloved poems of companionship, she confronts her struggle with severe depression on its own stark terms. Selected by Kenyon’s husband, Donald Hall, just before his death in 2018, The Best Poems of Jane Kenyon collects work from across a life and career that will be, as she writes in one poem, “simply lasting.”

Now at the ten-year anniversary of her death, Kenyon's Collected Poems assembles all of her published poetry in one book.

Somber poems deal with the end of summer, winter dawn, travel, mortality, childhood, education, nature and the spiritual aspects of life.

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."

The poems in Jane Kenyon’s first book are full of respect for a life deeply felt. Her vision apprehends the mystery beneath everyday circumstances and objects, from the thimble to the edges of the map. The final section is translations of six poems by Anna Akhmatova.

Hall's bestselling collection ever speaks of the death of his wife--his gift and testimony, his lament, and his celebration of loss and love.

The late author of five books on poetry, including the recent "Otherwise, " sheds light on her writing life, growing spirituality, and her struggle with leukemia, in this enlightening collection of prose.

Hayden Carruth's letters to Jane Kenyon between April, 1994 and April, 1995, the year she was dying.