Otherwise

Kenyon, like other pastoral poets, used the natural world as a source of inspiration. She was also a contemporary imagist whose work was informed by the association and teaching of her former professor, husband Donald Hall. Like other poets of the era, she found inspiration in the works of William Carlos Williams, American poetry’s premiere imagist. Like Williams, Kenyon concentrates on precise descriptions while using everyday speech in non-metrical lines without rhyme. This technique is present in “Otherwise” where the poet draws sharp images of common objects, as in the “flawless / peach” (Line 6-7) and the “birch wood” (Line 10). As well, Kenyon’s use of the rural New Hampshire landscape solidified her reputation as a pastoral poet. She and Hall lived at Eagle Pond Farm for twenty years.

Kenyon’s reputation as an emotionally resonant writer contains appreciation for how much she communicated in just a few short phrases. Further, her sensitive exploration of depression, mania, and suffering in Constance (1993) aligns her with such earlier poets like Sylvia Plath, who wrote honestly of her own mental illness in books like Ariel (1965). A fan of English Romantic poet John Keats, whose work she studied, Kenyon emulated his manner of depicting mortality.