Jane Kenyon's "Dutch Interiors"
The Daily Poem
Goldberry Studios
4.6 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2023
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s poem comes from American poet Jane Kenyon, who would have been seventy-five today had she not died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven.
Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the subject of many of his poems.
Bio via Wikipedia.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm David Kern, and today is |
| 0:06.0 | Tuesday, May 23, 2003. Today's poem is by an American poet named Jane Kenyon. She was born on |
| 0:15.4 | May 23rd, 1947. She died in April of 1995. Since her birthday is on this date, May 23rd, it's a great time to |
| 0:24.4 | read a poem by her. I've read a couple of her poems here on the podcast. I believe I've read |
| 0:30.0 | having it out with melancholy and a couple other ones on the podcast. Late evening come, I think, |
| 0:35.0 | is one that I've read. The one that I'm going to read tonight is called Dutch Interiors, |
| 0:40.3 | and I'm going to read it once, as usual. |
| 0:42.9 | I have a few comments about it and about Kenyan in general, |
| 0:46.5 | and then I will read it one more time. |
| 0:48.7 | So this is Dutch Interiors by Jane Kenyon for Carolyn. |
| 0:58.1 | Okay. Dutch interiors by Jane Kenyon. For Carolyn. Christ has been done to death in the cold reaches of Northern Europe |
| 1:01.9 | a thousand thousand times. |
| 1:06.0 | Suddenly bread and cheese appear on a plate beside a gleaming pewter beaker of beer. |
| 1:12.6 | Now tell me that the Holy Ghost does not reside in the play of light on cutlery. |
| 1:18.2 | A woman makes lace with a moist-eyed spaniel lying at her small, shapely feet. |
| 1:24.2 | Even the maid with the chamber pot is here, the naughty red-cheeked girl. |
| 1:28.3 | And the merchant's wife, still in her yellow dressing gown at noon, |
| 1:32.3 | dips her quill into India ink with an air of cautious pleasure. |
| 1:40.3 | So this is a poem that as its title indicates is alluding to other work, other artworks, |
| 1:48.4 | particularly the paintings of the great Dutch masters. |
| 1:51.6 | We've got a reference to a painting with bread and cheese on a plate beside a glooming |
| 1:58.2 | pewter, beaker of beer, and one about the Holy Ghost residing |
... |
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