SOURCE: Hostetler, Ann. “Food as Sacrament in the Poetry of Jane Kenyon.” In Bright Unequivocal Eye: Poems, Papers, and Remembrances from the First Jane Kenyon Conference, edited by Bert G. Hornback, pp. 105-13. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.

In the following essay, Hostetler studies the many references to food and hunger in Kenyon's work. Hostetler notes that Kenyon often uses food imagery to symbolize sustenance—actual food for the body and metaphorical nourishment for the soul.

Communion of one sort or another seems to be at the heart of eating in Kenyon's poems, whether it be the poet's communion with life or with another being, human or animal. Eating the “ripe, flawless peach” in “Otherwise,” the poet merges with creation. Kenyon also tells us that she sits down for dinner with her mate at a candlelit table, but she does not tell us what they prepared. Her poems are...