Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Commentary
from Constance (1993).
Hey, I’ve been out of school for too many years to speak intelligently about poetry. But here goes…
I suggested Jane Kenyon’s poem because it’s accessible, self contained, and probably her most famous. You can sit with one of her poems for fifteen or twenty minutes and then leave satisfied. I like to like a poem’s speaker, and I always like Kenyon’s. She’s a neighbor I’d like to invite to my BBQ. Also, read this aloud – she’s a musician.
— Mike
Biography
Jane Kenyon was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1947. She published four collections of poetry including Otherwise (Greywolf), Book of Quiet (Greywolf), Constance (Greywolf), Let Evening Come (Greywolf), and From Room to Room Alicejames Books). Her translations of the poems of Anna Akhmatova resulted in Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatava (Ally Press). She was awarded a Guugenheim Fellowship, the PEN Voelcker Award, and was featured with her husband Donald Hall in the Emmy Award-winning Bill Moyers special, “A Life Together.” She died in April 1995 of leukemia.
– http://arts.endow.gov:80/explore/Writers/Kenyon.html
Minstrels Links
Anna Akhmatova, an excerpt from the ‘Requiem’ sequence: poem #231
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Nisha George · 2 July 2000
I liked it too.
Thanks.
I like poems that manage to say it well even while keeping it concise. nisha george
vellore
Todd · 4 July 2000
I liked this poem – I responded to it. I appreciated its down-to-earth quality. The poet itemizes several tangible things in her life that she values and finds meaning in (e.g., “two strong legs”). She doesn’t mention abstract things nor does she over-rationalize her appreciation. Instead the language is deliberately simple, direct, clear. Perspective comes in the recurrent phrase, “It might have been otherwise.” The word “otherwise,” nearly the only word in the poem made up of more than one or two syllables, contrasts with the concrete vocabulary found in the other lines.
I liked the spiritual awareness of the poem. It is like a prayer of thanksgiving. The poet is determined not to take anything in her life for granted but instead to pay attention to and acknowledge everything. Her outlook is completely positive. These are the good things in her life (and the good things in most people’s lives): health, sustenance, nature, work, love, companionship, comfort, rest. This surely says it all. She knows that life is short and that suffering is universal. This knowledge is the context out of which her words are formed.
I liked the patterning of the poem, too. With the repetition of “it might have been otherwise,” she seems to follow a kind of rhetorical pattern, which has a classical feel to it.
I am happy to make this poet’s acquaintance!
Todd
MAZE8 · 6 January 2005
this poem stuck to me… I had to look it up again….. now I have a copy of it. her rest in peace is her work continuing.