Edna St. Vincent Millay: Selected Poems (Library of Classic Poets) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century." -- -- Richard Eberhart

"I know that Millay is a good poet because there are so many of her lines in my memory. She belonged to a generation which thought of poetry as song; when that notion revives, as it will, the great appeal of her work will be felt again." -- Richard Wilbur

"One of the only poets writing in English in our time who have attained anything like the stature of great literary figures." -- Edmund Wilson

"She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century." -- Richard Eberhart

"There are some who delight and inform. It's so much better, you see, for me, when a writer like Edna St. Vincent Millay speaks so deeply about her concern for herself, and does not offer us any altruisms. Then when I look through her eyes at how she sees a black or an Asian my heart is lightened." -- Maya Angelou --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

This new addition to the elegant Library of Classic Poets series features selections from one of the best-loved poets of the early twentieth century. Elegantly packaged in a handsome edition with a satin ribbon marker, this volume is the perfect addition to any poetry library. Immerse yourself in the candid verse of Edna St. Vincent Millay, including such favorites as:

• "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"
• "Renascence"
• selections from A Few Figs from Thistles

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Gramercy (March 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517227215
• ISBN-13: 978-0517227213
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #593,482 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Poetry, August 11, 2001

By	Margaret "fugirl" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems (Perennial Classics) (Paperback)

I first became intrigued with the life and writing of Edna St. Vincent Millay when visiting the region of her birth while vacationing in Maine. I picked up this book as an introduction to her work and was very pleasantly surprised. "Renaissance" is her best known work and it seethes with life, hope and evinces the young Ms. Millay's gift for creating beautiful prose! Many of the other poems, which often center around death and rebirth or the loss of a lover, are equally penetrating and stunningly written in lucid language and unique metaphor. Highly recommended!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting poems from an enchantress, September 30, 2001

By	Walker E. Rowe III "Walker Elliott Rowe" (Castleton, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Selected Poems (Perennial Classics) (Paperback)

The introduction to this collection of poetry says that Edna St. Vincent Millay has been criticized for not being sufficiently "modernist". He poems are too sentimental, too easy-to-read, and borrow too much from 18th century styles. Well the critics might be right but I love this poetry and plan to read more.

Her most famous lines are here "My candle burns at both ends...it gives a lovely light", her first famous poem is here "Renascance"--this spooky poem gained her a mentor and an education at Vassar--and also present are poems from "Fatal Interview" and "Epitath for the Race of Man". My favorite poems are the short ones that talk of love: these are the easy-to-read poems dismissed by the critics.

If you read this poem then you must read the potrait of Edna St. Vincent Millay in "The New Yorker" and the memoir "The Shores of Light" by Edmund Wilson, the later book reviewer for The New Yorker magazine.

Edmun Wilson was just one of ESVM many jilted suitors. But she let him down gently her said. His book describes how he found work for her at Vanity Fair magazine. ESVM evidently charmed all the men she came in touch with. The editor of Vanity Fair complained that he could not have both of his editors in love with the same contributor to the magazine.

Many of the ESVM poems here have to do with nature, like the poem "Spring". Perhaps this is because she moved out of Greenwich Village to the country and there she wrote collections such as "The Buck in Snow". When she got married and left the city she didn't lose touch with her circle of fans and hangers-on including Edmun Wilson. Wilson describes here there at her farm reciting her poetry--she knew all her poems by heart--to wide-eyed admirers.

Alot of her poems here have no title. I imagine she might have felt that the title could be a distraction to a poem. If you can't think of a good one then don't create one at all.

Finally, feminists certainly will be upset with lines like "I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind..." But this is good stuff and lets us peer inside the female heart. They are just like us men it appears "...feel a certain zest to bear your body's weight upon my breast". This stuff is just as erotic and passionate as Shakespeare's sonnets and lyric poems--well not quite but good enough.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ...makes you want to read more, more..., August 9, 2001

By	Cipriano "www.bookpuddle.blogspot.com" (Planet Claire) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Selected Poems (Perennial Classics) (Paperback)

I have just finished this, my first reading of Millay's poetry and I must say I enjoyed it. This anthology makes me want to read more, not less. Her poems convince me that a biography of her life would probably be a worthwhile read also. The escape she is longing for and never quite leaps into, her obvious disdain for anything artificial or constrained combined with her love and respect for the naturally occurring (freedom)... these are dominant themes. And everywhere, TREES and other growing things! It is amazing how often the trees, fruit, grain, the forest, orchards, mushrooms, moss and even weeds are the things which Millay uses to convey her philosophical reflections. In my opinion, her finest poem (Renascence) written when she was 19 reveals early on this connection she felt between revealed nature and transcendence. "God, I can push the grass apart/And lay my finger on Thy heart!"

Colin Falck, in the Introduction comments that Millay was under-appreciated by those who considered her technique too traditional, and her content lacking in intellectual complexity. Did any of these critics read her sonnets I wonder? I agree with Falck's conclusion that "it is time we found a proper place for this intense, thoughtful, and magnificently literate poet." To the merciless critics I would send Millay's own words... "Cruel of heart, lay down my song./Your reading eyes have done me wrong./Not for you was the pen bitten,/And the mind wrung, and the song written."