Having It Out with Melancholy

American poet Jane Kenyon wrote “Having It Out with Melancholy” towards the end of her career. The poem originally appeared in the November 1992 issue of Poetry Magazine and then re-appeared in Constance (Graywolf Press, 1993), the last poetry collection published during her life.

“Having It Out with Melancholy” is a long lyric poem broken into nine sections, weaving in and out of fragmented narrative moments, observations, and flights of fancy throughout the piece. With this format, Kenyon reveals how her depression influences and manifests in all aspects of her life. Kenyon endows the condition (and the poem) with demonic energy, allowing her to explore questions of free will, survival, God, the value of interpersonal connections, and what makes life worth living.

Poet Biography

Jane Kenyon made her mark on 20th-century American poetry due to quiet yet emotionally candid and philosophically complex poems. Editor Jon Tribble praised her poetry for its warmth and ability to “invite the reader into the pains and pleasures of everyday life” in The Washington Post.

Born in 1947, Kenyon grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The youngest child of two musicians, she displayed an intellectual ferocity as a young girl. Kenyon often questioned and bucked against the school system and the strict Methodist leanings of her grandmother. During this time, she also reported the beginnings of her bipolar disorder, a mental condition marked by extreme swings between euphoric productivity and severe clinical depression. Kenyon began writing poetry after composing one for an assignment in ninth grade.

Kenyon began at the University of Michigan in 1965, eventually earning a BA in English and an MA in English. Kenyon also met her future husband and fellow poet, Donald Hall, at the University. While they met when she enrolled in his poetry workshop, Hall said he did not court her until 1971, one year after she graduated with her BA. After marrying in 1972, Kenyon convinced Hall to move back to his family home in New Hampshire in 1975.

The New Hampshire home began an inspiration and workspace for her writing, especially for her first poetry collection: From Room to Room (Alice James Books, 1978). Next, she translated Russian writer Anna Akhmatova’s poetry into English for Eighties Press in 1985 and wrote a second original collection, The Boat of Quiet Hours, in 1986. Her following two collections were Let Evening Come (Graywolf Press, 1990) and Constance (Graywolf Press, 1993).

As she continued to publish collections, her work gained acclaim for its storytelling, imagery, and directness. She earned a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1992, a PEN/Voelcker Award in 1994, and the position of New Hampshire Poet Laureate in 1995 due to her work. David Barber said her poems’ “calm decorum harbors thorny qualms” in a review of Constance (1993) for Poetry Magazine.

She especially became known for her frank depiction of mental illness. Her work pushed forward the explorations of mental illness started by Confessional poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton in the 1950s and 1960s. While Plath favored an anguished style and a surrender to despair, Kenyon expressed quiet defiance in more everyday language. Kenyon also explored her depression through the lens of Christianity. Kenyon rediscovered her faith after moving to New Hampshire and joining a local congregation.

Kenyon’s career was cut short after receiving a leukemia diagnosis in January 1994. She died the following year at age 47. Between her diagnosis and death, she selected poems for her posthumous collection: Otherwise: New & Selected Poems (1996).

Kenyon’s legacy endures past her death. Fellow poets wrote tributes to her in publications, including the Columbia Journal, The American Poetry Review, and Poetry Magazine. Hall wrote about his life with Kenyon in his 2005 memoir, The Best Day The Worst Day. His book wasn’t the only book centered around Kenyon. The biography Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life by John H. Timmerman (2002), the correspondence collection Letters to Jane by Hayden Carruth (2004), and the anthology Simply Lasting: Writers on Jane Kenyon all hit bookshelves in the decade after her death. Both the Hall-Kenyon Prize in American Poetry and the Jane Kenyon Chapbook Prize are named in her honor.

In 2005, The Washington Post reported that Otherwise: New & Selected Poems had 60,000 copies in print, making it “a phenomenon in American poetry publishing.” Of her work, Tribble said, “Kenyon belongs on a shortlist of contemporary poets whose work sustains readers who do not usually turn to poetry.”

Poem Text

Kenyon, Jane. “Having It Out with Melancholy.” 1993. Poets.org.

Summary

Kenyon sets a tone of helplessness and frustration by opening “Having It Out with Melancholy” with a quote. Russian writer Anton Chekov states, “If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.”

Kenyon then breaks the poem into nine sections. The poem’s opening section begins with her depression, referred to as “you,” waiting in her childhood nursery (Line 1). Once alone, depression grabs her and possesses her. As a result, “everything under the sun and moon / made [her] sad” (Lines 7-8). Depression affects her view of things she does not even yet have the ability to name. She indicates this through “even the yellow / wooden beads that slid and spun / along a spindle on my crib” (Lines 8-10). As she ages, her depression makes it hard for her to feel like she belongs to her mother and God. Depression already owns her.

The following section begins with a list of antidepressant medications. Kenyon’s experiences with these medications allow her to describe them with familiarity. Next, a friend tells her that she “wouldn’t be so depressed / if you really believed in God” (Lines 28-29).

In the fourth section, she usually goes to bed either as soon as dinner ends or when it’s dark outside (Line 31) to get a fitful rest. She also needs more time to sleep because the pain will wake her up throughout the night.

In the fifth section, Kenyon discusses an earlier vision of humanity co-existing in a calm and restful “river of light” (Line 38). The experience fills her with enough peace that she “no longer hated having to exist” (Line 44). However, depression ends her experience under the pretense that it never lets its “dear / ones drown!” (Lines 48-49). Depression’s theft of her peace makes her cry “for days” (Line 49).

The sixth section details her dog’s search for her. As her dog sleeps on her foot, he also grounds her. “His breathing / saves my life,” she says (Lines 56-57). She concentrates on his breathing patterns, allowing her to exist and distracting her from her depression.

However, her depression persists. She views her body as separate from her consciousness: “a piece of burned meat” (Line 59). It speaks with her voice, wears her clothes, and goes about her business as best as possible. However, her body feels “tired / beyond measure” (Lines 64-65). An antidepressant drug makes Kenyon feel more connected to her body and life. She returns to her family, friends, and work.

Kenyon still dreads her depression’s eventual return. She hates that it will re-enter her life “coarse, mean” and limit her ability to speak, read, sleep regularly, and reach out for professional help (Line 80). She feels helpless as “there is nothing I can do / against your coming” (Lines 87-89).

The last section, “9 WOOD THRUSH,” shows Kenyon up early, “high on” an antidepressant drug “and June light” (Line 91). She wants to hear “the first / note of the wood thrush” (Lines 93-94). Soon, the thrush’s “wild, complex song” reaches her (Line 96). It fills her with “ordinary contentment” and allows her to put aside “what hurt me so terribly / all my life” (Lines 98-100). She declares her love for the bird “singing in the great maples” and “its bright, unequivocal eye” (Lines 102-04).