preview

Jane Kenyon Poem Analysis

Decent Essays

In high school, I remember talking about the meaning of the poem we were reading, which was called “Leda and the Swan”, and I remember thinking “What the hell is this about.” Poems usually never make any sense to me, so I have always hated reading them. I never felt that I really understood the actual meaning of the poems. Someone would start saying what they thought about it and I would just think “How did you get that from this? ” The two poems I read were “Otherwise”, by Jane Kenyon, and “Hay for the Horses”,by Gary Snyder. I made sure to read them slowly and more than once to try to really understand what the poem is about.
My reaction to the poem “Otherwise” was different after I read it a couple of times. In the poem, it repeats the line, “It might have been otherwise” (Kenyon). The first time I read the poem I thought she wanted her life to be different. I felt that she was explaining what she does everyday and that she wanted to change things up, especially in the last line when it says, “But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.” I started thinking about my life and when I leave to go to Michigan State in the spring that there is going to be change that I can’t wait for. I want change in my life, instead of doing the same thing everyday and I felt that was what the poem was about. Then I read it a few more times and the meaning of the poem became much more different.
The second and third time I read the poem my reaction was the opposite. I realized she doesn’t want her life to change; she is explaining what she does everyday because she wants every day to be like that. It says, “I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach...All morning I did the work that I love.” When she describes the peach as flawless and that she loves her work, I saw it was more about her realizing how good her life is and that she doesn’t want those days to change.
The meaning of the last line that says, “But one day, I know, it will be otherwise” changed for me and the feel of the poem changed as well. After finding out what the poem really was about, the poem became sad for me instead of a more exciting feeling which I had the first time. It is almost as if she knows something bad is going to happen and that she only

Get Access