Otherwise

“Otherwise” is a poem by Jane Kenyon. She wrote the poem after she received a diagnosis of leukemia; this illness eventually took her life in 1995. This poem is one of a posthumous collection called Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (1996). Kenyon’s husband, the American poet Donald Hall, edited the collection.

The two-stanza lyric is one of Kenyon’s most anthologized poems and is made up of her signature short lines and sharp images. The poem traces the speaker’s daily routine, punctuated by the speaker’s thoughts about life and death. “Otherwise” is an example of Kenyon’s work as a contemporary poet who employs her own poignant observations of mortality. Kenyon, a confessional poet, read and learned from the works of Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) as well as from her former teacher and husband Donald Hall.

Kenyon wrote in free verse, using direct diction and little rhyme. Her resonant imagery reflects both the natural outer world and her own deep inner emotion. Kenyon admired how English poet John Keats (1795-1821) and American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) confronted melancholy, illness, and mortality in their poems and studied them extensively. Kenyon herself received commendations for the subdued nature of her work, the downplaying of self-pity, and her precise use of image. She wrote matter-of-factly, even when confronting death, as the reader can observe in “Otherwise.” Kenyon often wrote autobiographically, noticing the small details that surrounded her own domestic life. Many of her poems, like “Otherwise,” are set at Eagle Pond Farm, the house she shared with Hall.

Poet Biography

Jane Kenyon was born in 1947 on the rural outskirts of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her parents were Ruele and Pauline Kenyon. As a child, she attended a one-room schoolhouse, and she was comfortable in the outdoors and nature. Her grandmother ran a boarding house in downtown Ann Arbor, which Kenyon visited frequently. She eventually attended the University of Michigan for her undergraduate degree, which she received in 1970.

Donald Hall was Kenyon’s poetry professor, and he recognized Kenyon’s talent as an imagist and encouraged her work. Hall had recently divorced his first wife at the time of their first meeting, and he and Kenyon became friends. In an interview with Jerry S. Cramer, Hall mentions that a romance with Kenyon seemed out of the question, due to their nineteen-year age difference. (For a link to Cramer’s interview, see Further Readings). However, after Kenyon broke up with her boyfriend, she and Hall fell in love. They married in 1972, the same year Kenyon graduated with her master’s degree. Kenyon did not like academic life and urged Hall to give it up. In 1975, the couple moved to Wilmot, New Hampshire and settled at Eagle Pond Farm, a home that had been in Hall’s family since 1865. They supported themselves by writing and freelancing.

In 1978, Kenyon published her first book, Room to Room, which included poems about Eagle Pond Farm and her new marriage. Her work received accolades early on, but Hall’s acclaim often overshadowed her success. During her quiet life with Hall, Kenyon created subdued poems filled with rural images. Although she claimed not to be religious, she often borrowed Christian allusions. In New Hampshire, she and Hall began attending the South Danbury Christian Church, where she befriended minister Jack Jensen. Her studying of scripture informed her subsequent work although this influence was not overt. Many critics regard Kenyon as a quietly spiritual poet, comparable to Emily Dickinson. As relayed by John H. Timmerman, Kenyon devoted herself to the lyric poem to search for “the luminous particular” (for a link to Timmerman’s article on Kenyon’s faith and art, see Further Readings).

In 1985, she received accolades for her translation of the Russian poet Anna Akmatova into English while her own poetry gained acclaim with the publication of Book of Quiet Hours (1986). In 1989, Hall was diagnosed with colon cancer, and Kenyon and their friends prepared for his imminent death. He became the subject of many of her poems, several of which appear in Let Evening Come (1990). Surprising many, Hall made a full recovery from his cancer. To celebrate this recovery, Hall and Kenyon spent time travelling internationally from 1991-1993. According to Timmerman, Kenyon was deeply moved by the sight of a dead baby in the Ganges River. This event caused a questioning of faith for Kenyon, which was already shaky due to Hall’s close call and her own battles with mental illness. At this time, Kenyon began working on poetry which explored the bipolar disorder she had battled most of her adulthood. The collection Constance (1993) was well received due to Kenyon’s unflinching look at her depression without self-pity, and it drew comparisons to the work of American poet Sylvia Plath.

By the early 1990s, Kenyon was an associate member at Bennington College and New Hampshire’s poet laureate. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship (1992-1993) and won the 1994 PEN/Voelcker award. Both Kenyon’s poetry and Hall’s poetry, as well as their love story, was the subject of Bill Moyer’s 1993 Emmy Award-winning documentary, A Life Together. Then, in 1994, Kenyon was diagnosed with leukemia. Although, she underwent a bone marrow transplant, it was unsuccessful. Increasingly ill, she kept working on poems, even when near death, dictating them to Hall or other friends. After Kenyon’s death, on April 22, 1995, these poems were collected posthumously into Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (1996). Hall also wrote two books of poetry about his late wife—Without (1998) and The Painted Bed (2001)—as well as a memoir called The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, which details their daily life, her illness, and his loss.

Kenyon is remembered as a poet who wrote intensely moving lyric poetry, spiritual and haunting. An avid gardener, Kenyon wrote a column for the Concord Monitor. As Steven Knepper relayed, she once stated, “We are in fact like the grass that flourishes and withers, just as the psalmist says. Gardening teaching this lesson over and over, but some of us are slow to learn. We can only acknowledge the mystery and go on planting burgundy lilies.” (For a link to Knepper’s article see Further Readings.) This sentiment regarding the act of withering and the attempt to create beauty anyway is evident in “Otherwise.”

Kenyon and Hall, who died in 2018, are buried together in Proctor Cemetery in New Hampshire, near the church they attended and the house that is the subject and setting of many of their poems.

Poem Text

Kenyon, Jane. “Otherwise.” 1994. From Poetry 180. Ed. Billy Collins.

Summary

“Otherwise” follows the speaker as they go about their daily routine from the time they rise in the morning to nighttime. They get up, eat cereal, and walk the dog up the hill to the woods. The speaker returns to work throughout the morning. These activities are pleasant, but the idea that routine events may not always continue in this way interferes with the pleasant tone; there is a chance that circumstances might change. In the second stanza, the speaker details their actions during the afternoon and evening: a nap with a significant other, a dinner by candlelight, and bedtime, when planning for another day commences. Again, the thought of a change in situation interrupts this list of simple tasks. The poem closes as the speaker notes the inevitability of change and that these pleasantly busy days will one day cease.