Jane Kenyon was a poet from Michigan who battled depression throughout her life. She wrote about rural imagery and her experience with mental illness. The poem "The Suitor" describes happiness coming and going briefly like a timid suitor. Kenyon suggests that happiness is fleeting and often comes unexpectedly before leaving again. She uses imagery of curtains blowing in the wind and leaves turning together to portray this theme.

1. +
Jane Kenyon:
The Suitor
By Will Purtill

2. +
Jane Kenyon
 Born in Ann Arbor Michigan
 Attended University of Michigan
 Masters degree 1972
 Won Hopwood award
 Won PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry in 1994
 Met Husband at University of Michigan
 Donald Hall
 His Poems talked about her
 After Marriage moved to Farm in New Hampshire
 Battled Depression most of her life

3. +
Jane Kenyon
 Wrote about fighting depression
 Poems have rural images
 “Let Evening Come” was featured in the film “In her Shoes”
 Died from leukemia

4. +
The Suitor
We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish.
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like a timid suitor.

5. +
Theme
 Happiness is fleeting
“Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like a timid suitor.”
 Happiness often comes and goes
 Jane Kenyon says she understands suddenly that she is happy
when we often don’t recognize our own happiness
 “For months…” implies that happiness does not stay for long,
once it does come

6. +
Figurative Language
“We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.”
 suggests a rhythmic pattern
 Gives the reader a visual of the curtains
 Gives feeling of the draft
 Ties in with the theme
 “Like a school of fish” the leaves on the tree move in unison
 “Like a timid suitor” compares happiness to a timid suitor
suggesting that it comes and goes
 Comes for short visits then it leaves

7. +
Tone
 Switches from lonely to happy
 “we lie back to back” suggests that there is a distance
between the two
 suggests she is happy that someone is there
 “Suddenly I understand that I am happy.”
 creates a hopeful tone
 Realizes that she has the happiness she has been chasing months

8. +
Imagery
 Curtains rise and fall gives the reader a picture and the wind
creates a drafty feeling
 The leaves on the tree turning in the wind
 Creates a picture in the readers’ mind of the outside of the
window or her life
“Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides.”
 Showing their light undersides portrays the author’s
vulnerability; the light undersides are the parts of a human that
we don’t often see

9. +
The Poet and Her Poems
 Jane Kenyon uses life experience in her works
 Battled depression whole life
 Lived a secluded lifestyle
 Connecting her past to her works makes her an authentic
author, relatable, and vulnerable

10. +
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.

11. +
Work Cited
 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jane-kenyon
 Images courtesy of Google
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Kenyon