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A Hundred White Daffodils
In A Hundred White Daffodils - an enlightening and typically endearing collection of prose and poetry - the late author of five highly regarded books of verse reflects on her writing life, growing spirituality, passionate hobbies, and ultimately fatal struggle with leukemia. Jane Kenyon is one of the most beloved poets on the contemporary American scene; this book shows us why and how this came to be.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Jane Kenyon
16 books104 followersJane Kenyon was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and earned both her BA and MA from the University of Michigan. While a student at the University of Michigan Kenyon met her future husband, the poet Donald Hall, who taught there. After her marriage, Kenyon moved with Hall to Eagle Pond Farm, a New Hampshire farm that had been in Hall’s family for generations.
Kenyon published four volumes of poetry during her life: From Room to Room (1978), The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986), Let Evening Come (1990), and Constance (1993), and, as translator, Twenty Poems of Anna Akmatova (1985). Despite her relatively small output, her poetry was highly lauded by critics throughout her lifetime. As fellow poet Carol Muske remarked in the New York Times when describing Kenyon’s The Boat of Quiet Hours, “These poems surprise beauty at every turn and capture truth at its familiar New England slant. Here, in Keats’s terms, is a capable poet.” Indeed, Kenyon’s work has often been compared with that of English Romantic poet John Keats; in an essay on Kenyon for Contemporary Women Poets, Gary Roberts dubbed her a “Keatsian poet” and noted that, “like Keats, she attempts to redeem morbidity with a peculiar kind of gusto, one which seeks a quiet annihilation of self-identity through identification with benign things.”
The cycles of nature held special significance for Kenyon, who returned to them again and again, both in her variations on Keats’s ode “To Autumn,” and in other pastoral verse. In Let Evening Come, her third published collection—and one that found the poet taking what Poetry essayist Paul Breslin called “a darker turn”—Kenyon explored nature’s cycles in other ways: the fall of light from day to dusk to night, and the cycles of relationships with family and friends throughout a long span of years brought to a close by death. Let Evening Come “shows [Kenyon] at the height of her powers,” according to Muske in a review of the 1990 volume for the New York Times Book Review, with the poet’s “descriptive skills… as notable as her dramatic ones. Her rendering of natural settings, in lines of well-judged rhythm and simple syntax, contribute to the [volume’s] memorableness.”
Constance began Kenyon’s study of depression, and her work in this regard has been compared with that of the late poet Sylvia Plath. Comparing the two, Breslin wrote that “Kenyon’s language is much quieter, less self-dramatizing” than that of Plath, and where the earlier poet “would give herself up, writing her lyrical surrender to oblivion,… Kenyon fought to the end.” Breslin noted the absence of self-pity in Kenyon’s work, and the poet’s ability to separate from self and acknowledge the grief and emotional pain of others, as in her poems “Coats,” “Sleepers in Jaipur,” and “Gettysburg: July 1, 1863,” which imagines a mortally wounded soldier lying in wait for death on the historic battlefield.
New Hampshire’s poet laureate at the time of her untimely death at age forty-seven, Kenyon’s verse probed the inner psyche, particularly with regard to her own battle against depression. Writing for the last two decades of her life at her farm in northern New England, Kenyon is also remembered for her stoic portraits of domestic and rural life; as Gary Roberts noted, her poetry was “acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies.”
In Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (1996), a posthumous collection containing twenty poems written just prior to her death as well as several taken from her earlier books, Kenyon “chronicles the uncertainty of living as culpable, temporary creatures,” according to Nation contributor Emily Gordon. As Muske added in the New York Times Book Review, Kenyon avoids sentimentality throughout Otherwise. “The poet here sears a housewife’
Kenyon published four volumes of poetry during her life: From Room to Room (1978), The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986), Let Evening Come (1990), and Constance (1993), and, as translator, Twenty Poems of Anna Akmatova (1985). Despite her relatively small output, her poetry was highly lauded by critics throughout her lifetime. As fellow poet Carol Muske remarked in the New York Times when describing Kenyon’s The Boat of Quiet Hours, “These poems surprise beauty at every turn and capture truth at its familiar New England slant. Here, in Keats’s terms, is a capable poet.” Indeed, Kenyon’s work has often been compared with that of English Romantic poet John Keats; in an essay on Kenyon for Contemporary Women Poets, Gary Roberts dubbed her a “Keatsian poet” and noted that, “like Keats, she attempts to redeem morbidity with a peculiar kind of gusto, one which seeks a quiet annihilation of self-identity through identification with benign things.”
The cycles of nature held special significance for Kenyon, who returned to them again and again, both in her variations on Keats’s ode “To Autumn,” and in other pastoral verse. In Let Evening Come, her third published collection—and one that found the poet taking what Poetry essayist Paul Breslin called “a darker turn”—Kenyon explored nature’s cycles in other ways: the fall of light from day to dusk to night, and the cycles of relationships with family and friends throughout a long span of years brought to a close by death. Let Evening Come “shows [Kenyon] at the height of her powers,” according to Muske in a review of the 1990 volume for the New York Times Book Review, with the poet’s “descriptive skills… as notable as her dramatic ones. Her rendering of natural settings, in lines of well-judged rhythm and simple syntax, contribute to the [volume’s] memorableness.”
Constance began Kenyon’s study of depression, and her work in this regard has been compared with that of the late poet Sylvia Plath. Comparing the two, Breslin wrote that “Kenyon’s language is much quieter, less self-dramatizing” than that of Plath, and where the earlier poet “would give herself up, writing her lyrical surrender to oblivion,… Kenyon fought to the end.” Breslin noted the absence of self-pity in Kenyon’s work, and the poet’s ability to separate from self and acknowledge the grief and emotional pain of others, as in her poems “Coats,” “Sleepers in Jaipur,” and “Gettysburg: July 1, 1863,” which imagines a mortally wounded soldier lying in wait for death on the historic battlefield.
New Hampshire’s poet laureate at the time of her untimely death at age forty-seven, Kenyon’s verse probed the inner psyche, particularly with regard to her own battle against depression. Writing for the last two decades of her life at her farm in northern New England, Kenyon is also remembered for her stoic portraits of domestic and rural life; as Gary Roberts noted, her poetry was “acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies.”
In Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (1996), a posthumous collection containing twenty poems written just prior to her death as well as several taken from her earlier books, Kenyon “chronicles the uncertainty of living as culpable, temporary creatures,” according to Nation contributor Emily Gordon. As Muske added in the New York Times Book Review, Kenyon avoids sentimentality throughout Otherwise. “The poet here sears a housewife’
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
October 1, 2025
What a beautiful-souled person
December 7, 2019
I loved almost all of this book except the Christian aspects, but since this was a fundamental part of who Kenyon was, it is understandable that the book had a lot about her faith.
Still, the poetry and the interviews and the essays about gardening, all wonderful.
I deliberately read this book slowly just as you do a gourmet box of chocolates. Worth sipping and enjoying and musing over.
Still, the poetry and the interviews and the essays about gardening, all wonderful.
I deliberately read this book slowly just as you do a gourmet box of chocolates. Worth sipping and enjoying and musing over.
June 13, 2018
Once you've read all of Jane Kenyon's poetry and the poems of Anna Akhmatova she translated, you'll be looking for more. Here is more.
January 31, 2018
I thoroughly enjoyed A Hundred White Daffodils because of the glimpses this work gave into Jane Kenyon's personal thoughts and why translations, gardens, and nature are so important to her. The Akhmatova translations are absolutely wonderful and worth the read on their own. The biggest draw back to the essays is the repetition to some themes and information that becomes nuisance after a while.
I look forward to pick up her poetry collection from the library because I'm drawn to her poetic voice that is contained within the essays. Kenyon is engaging and contain a great deal of effective imagery. Her ideas on how poets/writers should move within society are beautiful and idealistic for any (aspiring) writer.
A few of my favorite essays in this book are: "Childhood, When You Are In It...", "The Moment of Peonies", "Season of Change and Loss", "The Honey Wagon", and "A Proposal for New Hampshire Writers".
I look forward to pick up her poetry collection from the library because I'm drawn to her poetic voice that is contained within the essays. Kenyon is engaging and contain a great deal of effective imagery. Her ideas on how poets/writers should move within society are beautiful and idealistic for any (aspiring) writer.
A few of my favorite essays in this book are: "Childhood, When You Are In It...", "The Moment of Peonies", "Season of Change and Loss", "The Honey Wagon", and "A Proposal for New Hampshire Writers".
March 20, 2024
Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful!!! ❤️
March 12, 2019
Curated and published posthumously by Kenyon's husband, U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall.
A treasure.
Especially enjoyed her essays about gardens and neighbors and her interview with Bill Moyers (1993).
A treasure.
Especially enjoyed her essays about gardens and neighbors and her interview with Bill Moyers (1993).
April 30, 2018
I love this book so much. ALL THE STARS!
May 31, 2018
I enjoyed the book. But it is an odd book. Translations of a Russian poet in one part, essays in another and then interviews and then lets just end with a poem. Odd. That being said, I loved parts of it. The essays were my favorite part. Gardening being a topic helps. The essay touting how gardening prepares you for loss, over and over was my favorite.
February 21, 2018
My relatively low rating of this book has nothing to do with the quality of Kenyon's work. I'm a big fan of her work, and consider it precious. The book itself was not a well-conceived project, though it has its worthwhile highlights. The Akhmatova translations are gorgeous! And any fan of both poets will revel in the delicate and delicious connections between these two poets. Much of the rest of the book is collected prose, a bunch of newspaper articles Kenyon wrote, which are fun to read, and remind us how glorious small-town newspapers used to be, especially in their showcasing of local talents and voices while fostering local connectivity. If you're a die-hard Kenyon fan, you'll love this book.
January 28, 2025
A very pleasant book. You see Kenyon the stronger and Kenyon the weaker, as Donald Hall acknowledges in his introduction. That inconsistency, however, bothered me little. Having now read something on the order of 20 books composed or edited by Hall and Kenyon, entering their lives has truly become one of the simple pleasures of my life. Even in weaker pieces, Kenyon’s genius for noticing and naming the poetry of nature is as enjoyable as it is instructive. I savored this book and its gems (which include an unpublished poem, the Akhmatova translations, and an interview with *both* Hall and Kenyon at once). I’d recommend it to all devoted fans of the couple. To those less invested, start elsewhere. For Kenyon, consider reading the posthumous selection entitled “Otherwise.”
July 24, 2020
Just finished this book in preparation for my visit to Wilmot. The essays are uneven, but I sure do wish she'd written more. As with her poems, most of them anyway, she stops short at the image and probes no further. Sometimes that's okay but I feel as if she was "allowed" to do this but should have forced herself to dig down, as she has a lot to say.when she does. I loved the final poem in the book, and I'm glad Hall included it. So dark, so rich. Perhaps had she lived longer and come to terms with the depression that plagued her as i believe she would have, she would have explored further.
March 8, 2019
I am so sorry to find Jane Kenyon so late, and then to find out she died young is very sad. The essays are lyrical and conjure beauty. I was less taken with the interviews. I will definitely read more of Kenyon’s work.
October 9, 2019
How had I never heard of Jane Kenyon before? Raised in Ann Arbor, married to Donald Hall? Better late than never. Counting this one for my challenge: A translated book written by and/or translated by a woman (because it includes Kenyon's translations of Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatova).
June 7, 2017
Lots of good stuff here. The essays, the newspaper columns, the interviews and the Anna Akhmatova poems. I wish Jane Kenyon lived longer to write so much more.
February 1, 2016
Oh, beautiful words. I knew I would love getting to know Jane Kenyon, but didn't expect to bond to her work quite so quickly. Kenyon's husband, U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall, curated this collection of her prose after her too-young death to leukemia. While the selections seem a bit disconnected (everything from short newspaper columns to Kenyon's translations of Russian poetry to interview transcripts with Bill Moyers and others), the effect of the accumulated whole provides a beautiful snapshot of the woman behind the poems.
Perhaps most striking to me is Hall's decision to include an unfinished essay Kenyon wrote, describing a transformative spiritual experience. She left it unfinished not because she ran out of time but because she "became speechless when she tried to name it." The essay left hanging mid-air, so to speak, seems fitting for her interrupted life.
I'm glad to know that all of Kenyon's suffering with manic depression and unanswered spiritual questions have been released into comfort and joy, but I sure wish she could have written more words (poetry and prose) to leave behind.
Perhaps most striking to me is Hall's decision to include an unfinished essay Kenyon wrote, describing a transformative spiritual experience. She left it unfinished not because she ran out of time but because she "became speechless when she tried to name it." The essay left hanging mid-air, so to speak, seems fitting for her interrupted life.
I'm glad to know that all of Kenyon's suffering with manic depression and unanswered spiritual questions have been released into comfort and joy, but I sure wish she could have written more words (poetry and prose) to leave behind.
July 23, 2010
I particularly enjoyed the translations of Anna Akhmatova -- and this :
The Moment of Peonies:
This year the plants exceed every expectation. Suddenly they’ve come into their full adult beauty, not strapping, but stauesque – the beauty of women, as Chekhov says, “with plump shoulders” and with long hair held precariously in place by a few stout pins. They are white, voluminous, and here and there display flecks of raspberry red on the edges of their fleshy, heavily scented petals.
These are not Protestant-work-ethic flowers. They loll about in gorgeousness; they live for art; they believe in excess. They are not quite decent, to tell the truth. Neighbours and strangers slow their cars to gawk.
or this:
. “Tenderness toward existence,” in the poet Galway Kinnell’s lovely phrase, is what we lose when we lose art, or when we fail to value it properly.
The Moment of Peonies:
This year the plants exceed every expectation. Suddenly they’ve come into their full adult beauty, not strapping, but stauesque – the beauty of women, as Chekhov says, “with plump shoulders” and with long hair held precariously in place by a few stout pins. They are white, voluminous, and here and there display flecks of raspberry red on the edges of their fleshy, heavily scented petals.
These are not Protestant-work-ethic flowers. They loll about in gorgeousness; they live for art; they believe in excess. They are not quite decent, to tell the truth. Neighbours and strangers slow their cars to gawk.
or this:
. “Tenderness toward existence,” in the poet Galway Kinnell’s lovely phrase, is what we lose when we lose art, or when we fail to value it properly.
August 2, 2008
This volume collects translations of Akhmatova's poetry, newspaper columns, and interviews. The columns and interviews, which discuss her spirituality, struggles with depression, and pleasure in nature, are beautifully written and thought-provoking in themselves. They also provide a valuable context for appreciating Kenyon's poetry. The interview with Bill Moyers was especially wonderful. Here is Kenyon commenting on her poem "Let Evening Come."
"There are things in this life that we must endure that are all but unendurable, and yet I feel that there is a great goodness. Why, when there could have been nothing, is there something? This is a great mystery. How, when there could have nothing, does it happen that there is love, kindness, beauty?"
"There are things in this life that we must endure that are all but unendurable, and yet I feel that there is a great goodness. Why, when there could have been nothing, is there something? This is a great mystery. How, when there could have nothing, does it happen that there is love, kindness, beauty?"
January 24, 2016
A wonderful introduction to her work, the book starts off with a series of Kenyon's translations of the poems of Anna Akhmatova, a poet I was unfamiliar with; some columns Kenyon wrote for her local newspaper; several interviews (the one with Bill Moyers is particularly interesting) and, finally, a few of her own poems. This book is an eloquent apology for a life of art, quietly lived. The reader won't get much detail about Kenyon's life, other than what she tells about herself in the columns, interviews and poems, but there is such a sense of simplicity, great feeling and grace that comes out of these pages.
March 20, 2013
I recently re-read this collection of Jane's essays, interviews, and newspaper columns. I'm a fan of her poetry but only one of her poems was included. She invites us into the most ordinary acts (raking spring mud) making us love them, love her, love the words that make them shine. I want to write like her - guileless, with wit and humor. This book was published posthumously by her husband, Donald Hall. I'm sorry she's gone.
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January 6, 2014I only read Kenyon's translation of Anna Akhmatova's Twenty Poems, which was only 30 pages of a 248 pg book. That is why there is no rating. However, I loved the poems so Kenyon must have done a good job translating them.
December 18, 2007
it's sort of a view into a daily life of jane kenyon thru. newspaper articles that she wrote. it's tiny bit "ordinary" and doesn't let itself stretch into the universal, into the beatufil. her translations at the beginning of the book are wonderful, though!
January 9, 2013
It was nice reading some of Ms. Kenyon's essays about gardening. They have much the same tone as her poetry but with more of a open and humorous style. If you like Kenyon's poetry, I'd recommend this book for the essays.
November 27, 2013
I love Jane Kenyon's simple, evocative style. Her translation of Anna Akhmatova's poetry is exquisite: you can feel yourself right there, in Russia, on the coldest winter day... Her poems about everyday life and everyday emotions makes me feel calm...and sometimes a bit melancholy...
August 25, 2007
amazing translations of akhmatova
September 30, 2008
This is a collection of essays and some of them are wonderful, some less so. The essays about gardening in New Hampshire are my favorites.
September 17, 2013
Read for the Akhmatova translations alone.
February 7, 2009
Terrific provocatie prose poems, essays, musings from a terrificly provocative writer.
March 26, 2017
i borrowed this book from the library because various authors reference Everything I Know About Poetry. i decided to test the rest of the content before purchasing it. And i'm glad i did.
Some books are just not meant for certain people -- and that's okay. This book and Kenyon's words weren't meant for me, but it may be meant for you so take it upon yourself to read it and garner your own opinions.
i (obviously) love the essay i reference above and found another gem on the page adjacent to it. Thoughts on the Gifts of Art is a MUST read for creatives making art in a Trumped-Up America. Both of these pieces are ESSENTIAL to a writing or creative life.
Some books are just not meant for certain people -- and that's okay. This book and Kenyon's words weren't meant for me, but it may be meant for you so take it upon yourself to read it and garner your own opinions.
i (obviously) love the essay i reference above and found another gem on the page adjacent to it. Thoughts on the Gifts of Art is a MUST read for creatives making art in a Trumped-Up America. Both of these pieces are ESSENTIAL to a writing or creative life.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews