I love Edna St. Vincent Millay. The first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, she has a powerful, lyric voice, one that is heavy with emotion and depth and something that just cuts me to the core.
None of her poems strike me quite as powerfully as this sonnet, however:
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, — so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
It never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It’s so incredibly powerful. When I’m writing, I read Millay’s poems often…I’m always trying to figure out how she takes 100 words to rouse the same amount of feeling that it takes me 90,000 words to rouse. I don’t know that I’ll ever fully understand it…
July 6th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Intense & beautifully wrought…I'm not sure if I should feel happy or sad that I've yet to feel this way for someone. So bittersweet!
July 6th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Such a beautiful poem. I love her work, too. I think I became an English major just so I could get college credit for reading the things I wanted to read anyway.
Have you read Savage Beauty, by Nancy Milford? It is a great bio of ESVM. Of course, lots of poetry reprints – you couldn't do a bio of her without them!
July 6th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
My grandfather taught me this line from Millay when I was just a wee little Skov
"My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light."
July 9th, 2010 at 1:45 am
It takes all kinds to make a world.............................................................