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skoppelkam's review against another edition
3.0
At first I was like "nah, Edna, you use way too many exclamation points and you're way too reverent" but then I got sucked in by the biting, fiercely independent voice lurking beneath the first few poems of this collection. Then Edna reveals herself with poems like "Thursday":
"And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday -
So much is true.
And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday, - Yes - but what is that to me?"
Edna St. Vincent Millay: the original Millenial, 100 years too soon.
My favorite in the collection is "Witch-Wife"
"And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday -
So much is true.
And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday, - Yes - but what is that to me?"
Edna St. Vincent Millay: the original Millenial, 100 years too soon.
My favorite in the collection is "Witch-Wife"
laura_trap's review against another edition
5.0
Very much enjoyed this little book of selected poetry. It was much darker than I ever imagined it to be, with death and heartbreak, loneliness and bitterness very central and prevalent themes. There was also many references to classical mythology which was also very enjoyable. I liked her tendency to rhyme and the sonnets were witty and sharp.
cantwelljr's review against another edition
5.0
It's been a while since I've enjoyed a book of poetry this much! I would strongly recommend this to anyone who wants to read some poetry but is looking for something a little more down to earth.
My favorite poems: Tavern, Sonnet VI: Bluebeard, First Fig and Second Fig, The Blue-Flag in the Bog, Travel
My favorite poems: Tavern, Sonnet VI: Bluebeard, First Fig and Second Fig, The Blue-Flag in the Bog, Travel
unabridgedchick's review against another edition
5.0
This slender volume is perfect for those unfamiliar with Millay -- it contains her most well-known pieces -- as well as those who are devoted fans -- it's the perfect size for carrying around and dipping into as needed!
parnassusreads's review against another edition
5.0
I'm not much of a poetry reader for pleasure, but I've studied enough of it to know what's good. I hadn't encountered Millay's poetry before however, and I sincerely wish I had. Her poetry is simple and beautiful and highly recommended.
teen_moth's review against another edition
4.0
"First Fig" remains to be the best poem to shout into the night when incredibly drunk.
dvlavieri's review against another edition
4.0
Everything in life seems to me to be ephemeral, always passing, changing, transforming. Nothing stays the same, nothing lasts. We live in a very narrow slice of infinity, and in our mind we explode every moment of that slice to something enormous, something of incomprehensible significance. We analyze every glance and turn of phrase, we plan our days and weeks and months and five-year plans, and our retirements which we may never reach. We are always sad to let things go, it does not come naturally to us. We cling and hold fast to the things we love, even cling to pains that have become dull, for fear of new, harsher hands which may play upon us. And yet we paradoxically love the idea of new things. New cars, and the excitement of new romances and new cities, travels to new places, discovering new books. "Death is the mother of beauty" said Wallace Stevens, which is to say that nothing beautiful is eternal, that we are only moved by the knowledge that what is will never be the same again. Like a photograph caging a moment of beauty into something of forever, so to does a poem capture that slice of dying Time forever.
For Edna St. Vincent Millay, there is perhaps no god in her poetry if not the omnipotence and unconquerable god of Time. She is acutely aware of the passing of time, of the passing of loves, the passing of moments, like ships at sea. As soon as a moment buds, it has stepped closer to decay. As soon as a love is forged, it is one day closer to rust. This seems to be a very cynical view of the world, that all is always dying, that nothing lasts, and nothing is certain but death and ruin. But aren't we moved by ruins? We are not moved by cities, not by skyscrapers nor apartment buildings which climb high into the sky and bustle with inmates and house-cats going about their dailies. What moves us are the ruins past, where no one lives, the Pompeiis of the world which echo with ghosts, of unsolved mysteries and goings-on which have long been dulled by the crawl and recession of time. Like sand on the beach always being drawn away, inch by inch, so too does time pull back on the present, transforming it into the past. What once was ugly to us becomes beautiful in the nostalgic distances of the past - for it was always beautiful, but beauty requires distance. If the only paradises are paradises lost, then too are the only beauties lost beauties. Millay is hyper aware of the beauty in passing things, in transient things, in dying things.
Perhaps the cruelest truth in love, in beauty, is that we withhold it from ourselves. We are citadels of grief, keeping out happiness, and hemming ourselves in with our evasions and defenses. We do not want to risk being struck by lightning. We do not take chances, we vouchsafe our lives to the wavering seas of time, bobbing up and down like corks on the waves, never secured in our happiness, but never, too, sunk completely, always in flux. We hurt ourselves with our own pride, we refuse to be subservient to the idea of love, we champion ourselves as worthy of love, but hold ourselves too highly. We never give up our whole hearts, and so instead we lose them piece by piece.
For Edna St. Vincent Millay, there is perhaps no god in her poetry if not the omnipotence and unconquerable god of Time. She is acutely aware of the passing of time, of the passing of loves, the passing of moments, like ships at sea. As soon as a moment buds, it has stepped closer to decay. As soon as a love is forged, it is one day closer to rust. This seems to be a very cynical view of the world, that all is always dying, that nothing lasts, and nothing is certain but death and ruin. But aren't we moved by ruins? We are not moved by cities, not by skyscrapers nor apartment buildings which climb high into the sky and bustle with inmates and house-cats going about their dailies. What moves us are the ruins past, where no one lives, the Pompeiis of the world which echo with ghosts, of unsolved mysteries and goings-on which have long been dulled by the crawl and recession of time. Like sand on the beach always being drawn away, inch by inch, so too does time pull back on the present, transforming it into the past. What once was ugly to us becomes beautiful in the nostalgic distances of the past - for it was always beautiful, but beauty requires distance. If the only paradises are paradises lost, then too are the only beauties lost beauties. Millay is hyper aware of the beauty in passing things, in transient things, in dying things.
THE FIRST rose on my rose-treeWe hear recurrent in Ms. Millay's poetry this seeming ambivalence towards loss and grief, this acceptance that the best things of yesterday have already depreciated immeasurably in time. She knows that we don't appreciate beauty when it is present, beauty "buds, blooms" when "nothing matters" - when we can't appreciate it, when it is too close, when we take it for granted, when we are still aspiring for better. And it shatters before we even see that we were happy. We are much better at grief than gratitude. So much beauty goes unseen by us because we do not give it attention, we do not think of our happiness; but we are wallowers in grief. Grief seems to us an ocean; happiness, beauty, a lightning-flash. We are comforted by the endless vastness of the oceans of grief, their expected tempos and waves of emotion, which threaten imminently to topple us over, to wreck us. We see the flashes of beauty only peripherally, we never seem to catch them head-on, we are never ready with our cameras, and even when we do they never seem quite right captured. We look back on moments of great beauty, and think they "must have been very pretty" - but we did not think so when we had them, when our rose bushes were blooming just outside our windows, on days we kept the windows shut so that bees wouldn't come in, or the wind wouldn't disrupt the pages on our desks. Yes, they must've been very pretty.
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.
Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty.
Perhaps the cruelest truth in love, in beauty, is that we withhold it from ourselves. We are citadels of grief, keeping out happiness, and hemming ourselves in with our evasions and defenses. We do not want to risk being struck by lightning. We do not take chances, we vouchsafe our lives to the wavering seas of time, bobbing up and down like corks on the waves, never secured in our happiness, but never, too, sunk completely, always in flux. We hurt ourselves with our own pride, we refuse to be subservient to the idea of love, we champion ourselves as worthy of love, but hold ourselves too highly. We never give up our whole hearts, and so instead we lose them piece by piece.
Thus when I swear, "I love with all my heart,"While this is a lovely collection, to anyone interested in Millay's poetry, I would rather recommend her Collected Poems, as they include a broader selection of her poetry, and more specifically consolidate all (or at least most of) Millay's sonnets, which are her strongest and most poignant.
'Tis with the heart of Lilith that I swear,
'Tis with the love of Lesbia and Lucrece;
And thus as well my love must lose some part
Of what it is, had Helen been less fair,
Or perished young, or stayed at home in Greece.
ginnygriggs's review against another edition
3.0
Not my favorite style, but Millay is clever and witty (and also kind dark and twisty?).
maryannthelibrarian's review against another edition
3.0
Herein lies the danger for someone who 1. loves to read just about anything 2. works in the bargain section at a book store. There is very little to disuade me from buying more books than I can read at one time (the vicious cycle - ooh, that looks interesting...I'll just stick a copy on my shelf and maybe buy it later, it's only $3.99...20 books later I've spent a lot of money on books I wouldn't otherwise even think to read. That is not to say that I don't enjoy Millay - I enjoy her very much. "Aftenoon on a Hill" is my current favorite.