The opening lines of “Meditation on the Nativity” indicate that this poem is an imaginative variation on the conventional theme suggested by the title. In the fulfillment of God’s promise to humankind, archetypal fears are assuaged; legends and fables are realized and take on specific form: “Painters’ perceptions, visionaries’ long/ Torments and silence, blossom here and speak.” Jennings does not analyze the mystery of the Nativity; she mediates on the human significance of the divine pattern revealed in “A maid, a child, God young.” She portrays with vivid immediacy, the exact physical contours of the scene with Mary and her child. Mary is endowed with individuality with and maternal compassion as “she soothes” the child: “Her modesties divest/
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The above lines are from “Much to be Said” from Consequently I Rejoice. It has been observed that Jennings does not write consciously as a woman. She is first a poet and then a woman poet. Probably there are two reasons for this .Firstly she believes that poetry by men and women cannot be different secondly she does not make an issue of it , in spite of the trends emphasizing women poets.
In the 1960s Jennings felt that being a woman poet was easier in America than in England and the same view was expressed by her in an interview to John Press. However the continuity with which she had been writing poetry and prose shows that she might have changed her view on the issue now. Every other year, sometimes every year, there has been a book written by her. Her late Collection Consequently I Rejoice was published in 1977.
She writes poetry as if it were a vocation, her only vocation. When asked by John Press whether she writes swiftly and revises a great deal or writes slowly and painfully, and carefully, her answer is positive: “I write swiftly and revise very little, “This points to the fact that she feels poetry is her natural calling rather than an artistic skill she labors
(317)
The above lines are from “Much to be Said” from Consequently I Rejoice. It has been observed that Jennings does not write consciously as a woman. She is first a poet and then a woman poet. Probably there are two reasons for this .Firstly she believes that poetry by men and women cannot be different secondly she does not make an issue of it , in spite of the trends emphasizing women poets.
In the 1960s Jennings felt that being a woman poet was easier in America than in England and the same view was expressed by her in an interview to John Press. However the continuity with which she had been writing poetry and prose shows that she might have changed her view on the issue now. Every other year, sometimes every year, there has been a book written by her. Her late Collection Consequently I Rejoice was published in 1977.
She writes poetry as if it were a vocation, her only vocation. When asked by John Press whether she writes swiftly and revises a great deal or writes slowly and painfully, and carefully, her answer is positive: “I write swiftly and revise very little, “This points to the fact that she feels poetry is her natural calling rather than an artistic skill she labors