Reading.....Edna St. Vincent Millay

I woke up to a rainy summer morning today, perfect for curling up on the porch swing with a cup of Earl Gray and a volume of poetry. I revisited an old favorite today, Edna St. Vincent Millay. I became obsessed with her in college. I remember once in my bohemian days of staying out late and discussing existential matters with complete strangers, meeting a young man who quoted Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnets to me over a bottle of cabernet. It's a good thing he was only passing through my city, or I might have married him and then Kate would have never been born.

In a lot of ways Edna St. Vincent Millay is a poet of youth and defiance, but even now, not quite as young, flippant, and devil may care as I was then, I'm mesmerized by her wit, independence and keen insights into human fallibilty and both the thrill and isolation of freedom. This poem served as a sort of anthem for her generation (and really any generation of youth, no matter the decade).


"First Fig"
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!

I've long had Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Savage Beauty, on my reading list, but I'm thinking it may need to be bumped up to the top of the queue after rereading these lovely poems today.