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A candid memoir of love, art, and grief from a celebrated man of letters, United States poet laureate Donald Hall

In an intimate record of his twenty-three-year marriage to poet Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall recounts the rich pleasures and the unforeseen trials of their shared life. The couple made a home at their New England farmhouse, where they rejoiced in rituals of writing, gardening, caring for pets, and connecting with their rural community through friends and church. The Best Day the Worst Day presents a portrait of the inner moods of "the best marriage I know about," as Hall has written, against the stark medical emergency of Jane's leukemia, which ended her life in fifteen months. Between recollections of better times, Hall shares with readers the daily ordeal of Jane's dying through heartbreaking but ultimately inspiring storytelling.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003JTHWIC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (November 8, 2006)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 8, 2006
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1053 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 277 pages
Reviewer: Timothy J. Bazzett
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Heartbreaking, eloquent and real
Review: Although this is so overtly a chronicle of losing a loved one, about the horrors of cancer and its various treatments, it is also a very real picture of what makes a good and lasting marriage. Although Hall and Kenyon knew the odds of their union lasting were very slim, given the 19-year age difference and her bipolar illness, they took the plunge, Hall noting that "all marriages start in ignorance and need; what matters is what you do after you marry." Fifty-five pages later, Hall affirms what makes their marriage last -"What we did: love. We did not spend our days gazing into each other's eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages ... Each member of a couple is separate. The two come together in double attention."He speaks further of what, for them, constituted those "third things" - John Keats, the BSO, children, pets, or Eagle Pond. The twenty-three years Hall and Kenyon had together had their ups and downs to be sure, but in the end love prevailed. This book is Hall's very personal love song, written just for Jane. Read it and learn what love is really all about. - Tim Bazzett, author of Pinhead: A Love Story

Reviewer: Myfanwy Collins
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: "the company of tears"
Review: I recently finished reading Jane Kenyon's collected poems which left me missing her and wanting more. And so I picked up The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon written by Kenyon's husband--the esteemed poet Donald Hall. While the subtitle of this book is "Life with Jane Kenyon," I would argue that it is not so much about Kenyon's life with Hall as it is about her death, her dying. Yes, Hall does recount memories and vignettes of their life together, particularly how it was they came to live in their beloved farmhouse in New Hampshire.Mostly I found this touching book to be an exploration of a husband moving through the process of grief, of holding on, and of letting go. Throughout, Hall beautifully and matter-of-factly reveals what it feels like when the one you love dies, and what are those threads that carry you through to this end, and what are those threads that bind you to this life afterward: "Poetry gives the griever not release from grief but companionship in grief. Poetry embodies the complexity of feelings in their most intense and entangled, and therefore offers (over centuries, or over no time at all) the company of tears."

Reviewer: Bartles
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Profound and probably unforgettable
Review: I don't read poetry but I read an essay in The New Yorker a few months ago (View in Winter, January 2012) that was so arresting I had to look up the author, to find he was one "Donald Hall" who had also written a memoir about his late wife. I had the idea, from reviews I read, that it largely alternated between the bipolarity of a difficult wife and her tragic cancer death. In fact, what I found was little about Jane's bipolarity and much about her leukemia and donor bone marrow transplant. And much about how they lived and loved. And also who their friends and family were. Having gone through the front lines of a bone marrow transplant with a family member of my own, the subject matter alone was too arresting to fail to cling to every small detail and larger brushstroke. There is much more in this book about poetry than there is about bipolarity, but there is very very much about the cancer and BMT. Thank you, Mr. Hall, for writing this profoundly moving and rich book. I expect I will have to reread it again.

Reviewer: colleen
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A very special book, a very special couple.
Review: Absolutely one of my favorite books. I reread it at least once a year. I finally replaced my tattered hardcover with a kindle edition and I keep it close to my heart. Read this book, it will change your life.

Reviewer: Reflective reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Moving memoir
Review: The story of two poets - husband and wife... she gets leukemia and the couple go through an incredible ordeal to regain health - ultimately unsuccessful. The story is told by the husband with frequent flashbacks to their past in happier times. Sad of course, but reading the book gives insights on life, marriage and illness. It's also quite interesting to learn how the two poets lived and worked together.

Reviewer: Case Quarter
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: love and caring
Review: donald hall began this memoir of his life with jane kenyon with her funeral. she died at the age of 47 of leukemia. when they met, jane kenyon was a student of his at the university of michigan. together, the two of them wrote poetry, spent twenty years as a married couple in the farmhouse owned by hall's maternal grandparents, passed on to donald hall. diagnosed with leukemia, jane kenyon was subjected to a regimen of medications as her body deteriorated. she and her husband traveled across the country to seattle in hope of a successful bone marrow transplant. they lived with hope until they were informed she had a short time to live. a sad and touching conclusion to a marriage filled with love and joy the poet, donald hall, needed to tell.

Reviewer: SilverFox
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Expecting Different Slant
Review: I debated between 3 or 4 stars because this is a good book and there certainly is value in it. It is well written. It is not too long or too short. Why 3 stars? I was hoping to read deeper thoughts that a writer or poet might be able to convey (dig deep) on such a subject, but much of the book was about the everyday process and events one goes through in such a situation. And there is value in that for some readers.My favorite line in the book came when he speaks of their dating, he says...Neither Jane nor I said "I love you." Maybe both of us feared that "love" was a synonym for "pain"-and we were feeling only pleasure together, light pleasure."I was expecting more insight into his inner feelings and less on the medical nightmare process. The rain did pour in their life for a time. It just was not what I was expecting overall…and that is most likely my fault.

Reviewer: Leigh Hough
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Life and death and love and poetry in prose
Review: This is one of a list of books I visit with regularly, long after reading it the first time. Hall writes about his life with Jane Kenyon in the context of her death and manages to convey joy and sorrow and ordinariness and achievement on every page. It is a book stunningly intimate and specific to his life with her and somehow universal too. It will send you looking for their poetry and make you want to visit their beloved New Hampshire landscape.

Reviewer: Kindle Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a sad but inspiring book to read. Leaves you close to tears at times