Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)

I would submit that Edna St. Vincent Millay may be the most underrated poet in the English language.

Was she a formalist, and therefore out of vogue? Too bad. Was she a naughty girl, and therefore sent to a place less than nice when she died? More power to her; I'm sure she felt right at home.

The woman who, as an undergrad at Vassar, defied the president of the college to expel her and was told "What? "And have a banished Shelley on my doorstep?" -- and who then allegedly responded "On those show more terms, I think I can continue to live in this hell hole" -- was obviously not someone to be trifled with.

Cheeky? No doubt. A hellcat? She could've set the wind on fire -- then have doused the flames in a wink with wit alone.

Every one of the sonnets in this collection is a gift to the reader. This book alone is worth a year's tuition at Vassar -- and would no doubt prove more valuable to the few who may be caught there (or at Smith, Wellesley, Barnard, Mount Holyoke, or Bryn Mawr) against their will. It's too bad Radcliffe merged with Harvard only well after her death. The only wonder is that she didn't rise from the grave to stop it -- or, instead, lead the movement to have Harvard merge with Radcliffe. show less

By halfway though this book, it was plain to me that Millay wrote it in the midst of a struggle with despair, most likely over the infamous execution of the anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti. This execution occurred in 1927 (one year prior to The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems) depite recanted witness testimonies and conflicting ballistics evidence. Millay had campaigned in the extensive movement to prove their innocence, and the loss must have affected her deeply. Although only a couple poems show more in this book deal with the execution directly, these two were particularly powerful and heartfelt, and the same disillusion in them can be felt in most of the other poems too.

Her struggle lends the book a bleakness (particularly in the first quarter of the book) in a "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" kind of way, but it also speaks to me strongly. The sonnet "To Jesus on His Birthday" for instance is almost devastatingly powerful!

For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold;
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.
...
The stone the angel rolled away with tears
Is back upon your mouth these thousand years.

I feel deeply for this ardent, intelligent woman as she looks out upon a difficult, broken world. In the portion of the public that supported the executions, she clearly saw a general lack of compassion and even integrity of thought that disillusioned her. And given some callous rhetoric of her day, I can certainly understand her disappointment, especially in the un-Christian mindset of the religious people who were supposed to be motivated by the Sermon on the Mount. Particularly now, her disappointment in their lack of compassion speaks to me.

And yet despite this, the second half of the book is intermittently shot through with hope. For instance, I love the exhorting end to her sonnet "The Pioneer," responding to a statue dedicated to Mott, Anthony, and Stanton:

Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:
Take up the song; forget the epitaph.

In terms of craft, this book (along with Fatal Interview: Sonnets) is one of two strongest of her books that I've read so far, and I've read several. The language is sparer, more modern, and the word choice has more resonance.

The title poem is pleasing in its directness:

White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow,
Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered
buck and his doe
Standing in the apple orchard? I saw them. I saw
them suddenly go,
Tails up, with leaps lovely and slow,
Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks
bowed with snow

There were one or two excellent poems in Renascence & Other Poems, but here to my ear, there are a great many. Quite a few of the lyrics and sonnets alike strike me as very fine. Also, this book for the most part abandons the histrionic posing of Romanticism with a capital R that's very strong in some of the lyrics in earlier books, particularly Second April.

Overall, this is an excellent book that doesn't require a great deal of head scratching to understand. A closer reading can yield more, of course, but the entire book can be comfortably read over a handful of hours. show less

[4.5 / 5.0]

A slender volume that contains Millay's "Renascence", which was her first grand step into the limelight. There's definitely some lovely verse contained within.

She ponders all the big stuff--mortality, love, how to live a best life. From "The Suicide"

Ah, Life, I would have been a pleasant thing
To have about the house when I was grown
If thou hadst left my little joys alone!

And there are many a dark metaphor, such as referring to grief as an 'incorporeal bulk', that really hit their show more mark.

The collection also speaks of the smaller and larger joys of life, of being awake and alive in the world. "O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!".

Though at times in her life, and perhaps even after, she was eclipsed by her sexuality and life choices, I came to this collection through another work and only learned of her persona later. She had a reputation as a breaker of hearts... show less

Millay is a poet I never paid attention to. Perhaps it was her name. "Edna St. Vincent Millay" sounds like one of those high-minded matrons who might cringe if you use the sugar spoon to stir your tea and then put it back in the bowl. When I read Edmund Wilson’s The Twenties, I learned that its author was hopelessly in love with this elusive, willowy red-head; I became curious to read some of her work.
This, her first collection, was where I decided to start. It's a slim volume that took show more little more than an hour to read, even though I slowly savored it. All of the poems are good, some of them masterpieces. The title piece in particular, with its vivid description of a mystical experience, left me in awe. show less