SOURCE: Timmerman, John H. “Otherwise: Old and New Poems.” In Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life, pp. 212-23. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002.

In the following essay, Timmerman observes the poignancy of the poems in Otherwise: New and Selected Poems and analyzes works from her earlier volumes and previously uncollected writings that were not included in this collection.

In November 1994, Fiona McCrae, who had replaced Scott Walker as editor of Graywolf Press, proposed the collection of Kenyon's poems that would become Otherwise. Her letter arrived about ten months after leukemia had begun its virulent course through Kenyon's body. Kenyon had been diagnosed with the disease in January 1994, and standard chemotherapy hadn't helped. Kenyon now faced a bone-marrow transplant as the only option for extending her life. The transplant was performed at the Fred C. Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, on November 18. After Kenyon was discharged...