Early Poems

by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Holly Peppe

Millay's first three books of lyrics and sonnets are collected Renascence, Second April , and A Few Figs from Thistles . With a balanced and appreciative introduction and useful annotations, this volume presents some of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's best work in which she weaves intellect, emotion, and irony.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. 

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Literature, 20th Century, Ebooks, Fiction, American

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work.

This famous portrait of Vincent (as she was called by friends) was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1933.

Reviews

[Cassidy Brinn]

LOVED this. Often I can't summon the energy to devote myself to poetry, but these poems sprang out and demanded I pay attention. From the first poem on I was hooked. Her themes accomodate both wit and melodrama while her language trips along with sweet ease.

I wasn't equally in love with each piece of course. The first book has a lot of melancholy stuff about death and longing, which was nice but not particularly interesting to me at this moment. Then the second book bored me a bit with all this tralala so light and free and so above monogamy... Historically interesting, but again, didn't click with me. The pieces that shook me up and down were the ones about how to deal with beauty. Sometimes it is too much, and as a paltry human you cannot properly meet it - she describes that frustration and overwhelmedness perfectly.

I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass.

Also, the pieces about longing for water and for travel are golden...

My heart is warm with the friends I make
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.

[Másha (maria) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw, - it must have been
Very pretty."

[Bonny]

I'm not leaving a star rating as I don't read enough poetry to properly assess, but I'm glad to have been introduced to a talented artist. Not every poem is to my taste, but there really is something in here for anyone who enjoys verse.

[Carrie Poppy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a streak of genius in much of Millay's poetry, but it is too tortured to really be enjoyable. Most of the poems are about death or lost love. In "Spring" she brilliantly spews out her anger at the month of April:

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

I prefer Renascence and Other poems (or the first part) to the second A Few Figs from Thistles and Second April (the third part). The poet has an organic voice and a passionate style. Many of her poems have a morbid bend, presenting a speaker who, almost hysterically, mourns for lost love.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edna St. Vincent Millay had a sharp tongue and an even sharper mind. i love her play of language and wit.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars.

I heard that this was a great book to start with to ease into poetry (and as I am fairly new to the world of poetry--that sounded great). I really enjoyed Millay's work. Her themes range from nature, spirituality, loss and mourning, and love.

Here are sections or poems I liked a lot: "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." "Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: / Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!" and lastly I'll add "To what purpose, April, do you return again? / Beauty is not enough. / You can no longer quiet me with the redness / Of little leaves opening stickily. / I know what I know / ... It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling, and strewing flowers."

[Kassyreadsalot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on a recommendation from a Booktuber! She praised this book very highly and said it was good to read it the fall! I did read it and I really enjoyed it! She was right this is a great small poetry book for fall. Her writing is very beautiful! I would love to read more of Edna St. Vincent Millay! I am not going to critique poetry because I am not an expert in it and I don’t read it that often!

[leni]

searching my heart for its true sorrow,
this is the thing i find to be:
that i am weary of words and people,
sick of the city, wanting the sea;

wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
of the strong wind and shattered spray;
wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
of the big surf that breaks all day.

real..........

[Tynan Brooks]

Quite nice. Not so daring today as it likely was at the time. I can see why the Modernists found her poetry stale, but I find the more contemporary use of older forms refreshing now that the Modernists have won.

[Winston C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's so wild that poets could be such huge celebrities back then. Also surprising that she lived such a bohemian and spirited life unconstrained by social mores of the time, and yet her poetry is consistently melancholic and traditional in form.

[Nicky Kapsali · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection consisted of three of Millay’s books, my favorite being “A Few Figs from Thistles.” I had a hard time following many of her longer poems but the shorter ones hit spot on.

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m an English major so I do embrace and appreciate literature of all kinds, but I can’t stomach angry feminism.

[Isha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earnestly profound, quietly devastating, honestly embodied in senses with lyrics that ebb and flow like strings on a cello.

[Tasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite poetry that I’ve read but had some good pieces.

[Bern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is the first collection of poetry I've read front to back since I was a child making my way through Shel Silverstein's books. I have to admit I enjoyed this experience immensely. Edna St. Vincent Millay has a way of making you feel like you're exactly there - she pulls on those emotions that are so universal it feels almost impossible to really put into words. She also writes about a lot of themes that most classical canon poets often feel free to skip over ("the Philosopher" writes about unrequited love in a painfully mundane way - not perhaps interesting to my nemesis Shelley, but realer). I know that Millay spoke once about how she wrote things that audiences liked to hear about, love, nature, etc.. But if she meant to be pithy, she was certainly wrong. Sure, people write about love and nature and death. But no one writes it quite like her.

[Dinah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not actually the first time I've read through this anthology, but I had the privilege of seeing the tiny row house in Greenwich Village where this brilliant lady wrote and stepped into the Cherry Lane Theater which I didn't know she founded but still exists, and it seemed time for a revisiting.

Vincent never disappoints.

This collection is particularly heavy on the poems about death, sadness, and feeling lovelorn, but that suits me just fine. It'd be nice to have a little more acknowledgment that the woman had a bit of a Dorothy Parker streak in her as well, but honestly I could read the dreary stuff for days and not miss the snark a whit. Plus I always forget how openly queer her work was, long before "queer" was even a thing -- remember how there was a huge sexual revolution in the 20's that Americans choose to overlook completely? Vincent does. (Also she went by "Vincent" because she hated "Edna," you have to love this woman before even cracking the book open).

"Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse --
And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
There's this little street and this little house."

Tell me with a straight face that doesn't belong in the same canon as "And miles to go before I sleep. / And miles to go before I sleep." You can't.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Millay definitely mastered the sonnet, but the mood & theme of most poems centered on death, so I didn't find this an inspiring collection.
Exile was the poem I enjoyed the most. Ironically, within the opening bio pages, I love the quote Arthur Davidson Ficke used to describe Millay: ". . . an exile far out upon the world's forsaken rim, her wild feet forever seeking Beauty,"

[Emma-jane Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm new to Edna's work as I usually go further into the past for my poetry, but everything I have read by her has been a pleasure and she is already my favourite 20th Century poet.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars.

[Faye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally read it when I was young - it was good to revisit it.