In personal and critical essays, letters, poems, an interview, and reviews by writers around the country, Jane Kenyon's life and works are considered and celebrated for their tenacity, spirit, and timeless charm. Simply Lasting includes new responses to Kenyon's poetry and reviews and criticism written during her lifetime, as well as never-before-published letters from Kenyon herself. Poet, editor, and longtime friend of Kenyon, Joyce Peseroff has gathered writings that affirm Kenyon's place as one of America's most important recent poets. "That there will be no more writing by Jane Kenyon," Peseroff writes in her Introduction, "is one of the terrible losses that might have been otherwise."

IntroductionPersonal Essays, Letters, Poems, and One InterviewAlice Mattison, "Let it Grow in the Dark like a Mushroom"Jane Kenyon, Seven Letters to Alice MattisonGregory Orr, from "Our Lady of Sorrows"Galway Kinnell, "How Could She Not"Maxine Kumin, "Dinner at Jane and Don's"Wendell Berry, from "Sweetness Preserved"Jean Valentine, "Jane Kenyon 1947-1995", "Elegy for Jane Kenyon"Caroline Finkelstein, "The Beacon"Robert Bly, "A Few Lines about Jane", "The Yellow Dot"Liam Rector, "Remembering Jane Kenyon"Donald Hall, "Ghost in the House"Mike Pride, "Still Present", "A Conversation with Jane Kenyon"Critical EssaysLaban Hill, "Jane Kenyon"John Timmerman, from "The Poet at Work"Steven Cramer, "Home Alone: Self and Relation in Part I of The Boat of Quiet Hours"Wes McNair, "A Government of Two"Molly Peacock, from "A Comfort Poem"Judith Harris, "Discerning Cherishment in Jane Kenyon's Poetry: A Psychoanalytic Approach"Paul Breslin, "Jane Kenyon's Manners Towards God"Lynn Strongin, "A Faith That Blessed through Sorrow: Meditations on Jane Kenyon's Poetry"Shorter Pieces and ReviewsHayden Carruth, from "Poets on the Fringe"John Unterecker, from "Shape Changing in Contemporary Poetry"Carol Muske, "The Boat of Quiet Hours"Alfred Corn, from "Plural Perspectives, Heightened Perceptions"Robert Pinsky, from "Tidings of Comfort and Dread: Poetry and the Dark Beauty of Christmas"Marie Howe, "Jane Kenyon's Constance"ri0Lucia Perillo, "Notes from the Other Side"Peter Kramer, "Unequivocal Eye"David Barber, "Constance"Deborah Garrison, "Simply Lasting"Robert Hass, Poet's ChoiceMichael Dirda, from "The Gift of Being Simple"Constance Merritt, "Otherwise"Haines Sprunt Tate, from "Imitations of Mortality"