At its core, “Having It Out with Melancholy” showcases the nature of living with depression. Kenyon dealt with depression her entire life but was not officially diagnosed with Manic-Depression/bipolar disorder until age 38 (Kenyon, Jane, and Anna Andreevna Akhmatova. “An Interview with Bill Moyers.” A Hundred White Daffodils: Essays, Interviews, the Akhmatova Translations, Newspaper Columns, and One Poem, Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1999, pp. 153).

In the same interview, Kenyon describes her depression as follows:

In my case, it’s more like a unipolar depression. Manic-Depression usually involves both poles of feeling. That is, when you’re happy, you’re too happy; when you’re sad, you get too sad. Mine behaves almost like a serious depression only, and I rarely become manic (Kenyon 153-59).

“Having It Out with Melancholy” gave her a chance to increase awareness and provide solace for other people with mental illness.

To explain her experiences, Kenyon uses the lyric poetic form, which centers the speaker’s subjective experiences and uses a first-person perspective rather than a linear plot, omniscient narrator, or a wide cast of characters.