Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Paperback)

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Compiled by her sister after the poet's death and originally published in 1956, this is the definitive edition of Millay, right up through her last poem, Mine the Harvest.

About the Author

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Rockland, Maine, the eldest of three daughters, and was encouraged by her mother to develop her talents for music and poetry. Her long poem "Renascence" won critical attention in an anthology contest in 1912 and secured for her a patron who enabled her to go to Vassar College.

After graduating in 1917 she lived in Greenwich Village in New York for a few years, acting, writing satirical pieces for journals (usually under a pseudonym), and continuing to work at her poetry. She traveled in Europe throughout 1921-22 as a "foreign correspondent" for Vanity Fair. Her collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) gained her a reputation for hedonistic wit and cynicism, but her other collections (including the earlier Renascence and Other Poems [1917]) are without exception more seriously passionate or reflective.

In 1923 she married Eugene Boissevain and -- after further travel -- embarked on a series of reading tours which helped to consolidate her nationwide renown. From 1925 onwards she lived at Steepletop, a farmstead in Austerlitz, New York, where her husband protected her from all responsibilities except her creative work. Often involved in feminist or political causes (including the Sacco-Vanzetti case of 1927), she turned to writing anti-fascist propaganda poetry in 1940 and further damaged a reputation already in decline. In her last years of her life she became more withdrawn and isolated, and her health, which had never been robust, became increasingly poor.

She died in 1950.

Visit The Millay Colony for the Arts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (July 10, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060908890
• ISBN-13: 978-0060908898
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #112,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Evocative, January 3, 2000

By	BEN RILEY "autodidactic polymath" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Millay has been criticized for her lack of technical rigor, but that is the very essence of her accessibility to readers. Yes, she wrote poems that rhymed, sometimes to the point of sing-song meter, but her words carried weight. They meant (and still mean) something, not like the esoteric, pseudo-intellectual hodge-podge that passes for modern poetry. It seems that today's poets wear their inaccessibility as a badge of honor - that only a select group of academic word-smiths can even understand what they have written seems to represent success for them. Not so with Edna. She touches your heart, sometimes even breaks it, with common words, feelings, emotions. You don't have to work for her meaning, it is plainly presented for all to read. But beware! Her poems may be easy to understand, but they are impossible to forget.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for poetry lovers, June 28, 2004

By	I. Sondel "I. Sondel - lover of the arts" (Tallahassee, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There is so much to praise here, where do I start? How can I possibly communicate what these poems mean to me? "Renascence" alone takes my breath away - "The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through." These words too, allow the divine to shine through. "Interim" is, perhaps, as beutiful a poem as I have ever read. The author brilliantly captures the essence of loss, that grief and confusion, the mind's inability to accept the notion of a life alone: "...part of your heart aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled in the damp earth with you. I have been torn in two, and suffer for the rest of me..." There are still so many other passages that leap off these pages. Her phrases are like literary gem stones: Sonnet XXVII: "I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year" - could it be said any more succinctly? This collection is a must for anyone who cares at all about poetry - American or otherwise.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My most treasured book, June 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Collected Poems (Hardcover)

This book of collected poems is the most treasured book that I own. My copy is absolutely falling apart - I have to keep it in its own special box.