Prodigal |
There is much to love about Jane Kenyon’s poem, “Happiness,”
Happiness by Jane Kenyon : Poetry Magazine
especially if we violate the New Criticism and read her life into her lines—her death from cancer at age 47 and, according to Poetry Foundation, “the depression that lasted throughout much of her adult life.” We might expect such a person and such a poet to challenge the whole notion of Happiness.
Happiness by Jane Kenyon : Poetry Magazine
especially if we violate the New Criticism and read her life into her lines—her death from cancer at age 47 and, according to Poetry Foundation, “the depression that lasted throughout much of her adult life.” We might expect such a person and such a poet to challenge the whole notion of Happiness.
However, if we look only at the poem itself, as it centers
on one of life’s trickiest, most amorphous subjects, happiness, there’s not a single false note,
and there are brilliant gifts along the way.
The first two stanzas are dangerously general and
discursive; they resemble an essay’s thesis or topic sentences. But
the calmly bold opening line is much more profound and perceptive than we might
have thought. How often have occasions that were supposed to be happy turned out otherwise?
Prodigal? |
Like other good
conceits, Kenyon’s argument holds. The prodigal son does not deserve
forgiveness, and it seems we should not be happy to have him back. After all,
he’s wasted everything we gave him. However, if for no other reason than an
abatement of our loneliness in his absence, we are happy he’s returned. Our
love for him outweighs, or simply negates, any anger we feel.
It’s a peculiar logic that I, for one, had never thought of,
but in the end, it makes sense. It’s also brutally honest: we don’t necessarily
forgive because we’re generous, or good, or selfless, but because we were
bereft without the offending person in our lives.
If Jane
Kenyon were in a workshop these days, I bet someone would have suggested that her
poem really begins—and really takes off—with
the third stanza and she should delete the first two. In many cases I might be
that critic because most abstractions don’t have Kenyon’s power of surprise, freshness and important insight into human nature.
Still, once she begins the specific details, she maintains
her perceptiveness and originality. Who else would have thought to introduce an
unknown uncle? Who else would have placed him
An Unknown Uncle Flies into Town |
in a single-engine plane on a grassy
air strip, would have him hitchhiking into town and knocking on doors?
This guy is a bit of an avatar, out of the blue, yet I believe in him completely. If he’s fictional, I don’t care—then it would be the world’s fault for not containing such an airstrip and such a hitch hiking uncle, who loves an unseen niece that much, that daringly. In fact, does he sound just a little like Jesus?
This guy is a bit of an avatar, out of the blue, yet I believe in him completely. If he’s fictional, I don’t care—then it would be the world’s fault for not containing such an airstrip and such a hitch hiking uncle, who loves an unseen niece that much, that daringly. In fact, does he sound just a little like Jesus?
I also believe in Kenyon’s monk, her sweeping woman, the
child of the drunk mother—and my favorite single image, for this human might
most resemble us all: “the clerk
stacking cans of carrots / in the night.”
From there Kenyon makes another daring move—she personifies
inanimate objects and acts out John Ruskin’s famous concept of the Pathetic Fallacy, or the attribution of human qualities to
nature.
At the same time—near the end of the poem!—she develops the new theme of labor,
first with her catalogue of humans, and concluding with inanimate subjects. Beginning
with the monk, everyone works, has a
function. In the final four lines, that labor, that fact of being, expands to
the boulder, the rain, and the wineglass. They all do their jobs, and maybe they all become weary. At least the wineglass does,
explicitly, holding up wine—or is that blood, in the biblical sense of blood?
But it’s also true that all the characters and objects
receive happiness. Happiness ministers
to them, perhaps because they labor
and have functions. Maybe we are left with the implication that the destiny of
the prodigal son’s family is the labor
of receiving him back into their arms and hearts,
Grace? |
and that labor is their happiness, or at least happiness
is the reward for their labor.
With the ordinary word happiness,
maybe Kenyon is talking about grace—grace
made evident for those not inclined to believe it. I’d like to think so.
Happiness by Jane Kenyon : Poetry Magazine
13 comments:
Love Jane Kenyon.
"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.
-Jane Kenyon
K, fantastic! And chilling. Thanks so much. Sounds like she knew of the cancer at this point?
I didn't intend it this way, and it's hardly a perfect comparison, but maybe we can think of Jane Kenyon and Philip Seymour Hoffman together, two tremendous talents lost. Or at least we can mourn them together.
Well hit that poem at Fitzgerald's three o'clock in the morning.
When I was a kid, there was a board game, one that didn't last for the ages. But as I recall, at the beginning you had to pick one of three goals: Money, Fame, or Happiness. And not one of us little heathens ever chose happiness. We went for something we didn't already have, rather than what we assumed was a given.
AH, and three p.m. as well:
"until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair."
Also, I wonder if you're hearing at the end an unspoken line that happiness comes to everyone and everything EXCEPT the speaker. That might as likely as not.
A kids' board game . . . at least you remember yours!
"...until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair." Brings tears to my eyes.
And the poem Otherwise posted by -K- is so universal, inescapable, beautiful, sad, and true.
I didn't know about this poet. Now, I can't get enough. Love her...
Stickup, glad to hear it. I find it rare that I find a poem, much less a poet, I actually WANT to keep coming back to, and now I've recently gotten started on both Kenyon and Mary Reufle (very different poets)
Also, there's the tragic outline of Kenyon's life--while a college student, meets eminent poet and prof, Donald Hall, marries him, an "older man," moves to his family farm in N.H., he gets cancer, survives, she gets cancer and does not survive. Donald Hall's "Names of Horses" is still one of the most moving poems I've ever read. I put it up here some years ago--people can search for it here.
Also resonate to the bit about the uncle finding her asleep.
Wonderful photos, too.
Happiness, one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's where he gave me the absolute willies. That guy could channel pain deep pain like nobody's business.
Jean, thanks. And yes, something about a young kid asleep in the middle afternoon--it could be innocent, of course, but that's not likely to be our instinctive reaction.
Ken, he often gave me the willies, whatever the movie or scene. Sometimes I have trouble thinking of American male actors who rival the Brits, but he's up there with anybody.
Of course I would be happy if an unknown uncle turned up, preferably with a fortune in his pocket, but as a father of four I would roll out the red carpet if any one of the four turned up after a yearlong disappearance. Whatever their state.
Excellent photos as usual - the last one for me, please.
That footloose uncle who appears out of the blue -- to me, so fitting.
I'd prefer to keep the first lines, if only because they prepare me for what follows and set the general theme.
How can one control happiness -- when it comes, when it goes, how long it stays?
So many times I've gone out on a trip with the expectation of happiness, or enjoyment, only to end up feeling vaguely disappointed.
I wonder how many people feel that vague disappointment at Disneyland.
And on other times, I've just gotten into the car and left without any expectation, and found enjoyment and happiness and discovery along the way.
Great poem. The audio really helps.
Informative discussion of the poem, as well as the comments from your readers.
John, Disneyland! Don't get me started . . . . And yes, it's so important to experience the journey, often spontaneously, rather than becoming fixed on the destination.
Julie, thanks.
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