Collected Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

This collection Aria da Capo, A Few Figs from Thistles, Second April, Renascence and Other Poems

Genres: Poetry, Classics

148 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2008

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

[Stephanie Graves · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Millay, so very much, and I pick this book up again every couple of years. Her sonnets are incredible--she has such an amazing sense of musicality, and she conveys beautiful melancholy so well that I feel less alone in the world for it.

My very favorite sonnet of hers is XLIII:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

[Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I've found a new poet. Let me just say, it took a lot to unseat Robert Frost as my number one. He'd been my favorite since I was twelve, but Edna St. Vincent Millay took that seat as soon as I read just one of her poems.

[Valerie (Pate) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love Millay's work. I found her when doing my degree and I simply can't understand why I had never heard of her before. The Textbook said she was sometimes dismissed as being too simplistic, but it was that very same, simple beauty that drew me in. My very favorite was 'Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!', which simply means 'Fountain, I will not drink your water!'
The poem itself is in English and is so arresting. I read it over and over, cherishing it line by line.
Millay now has a forever place on my poetry shelf.

[Kim Bolton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edna St. Vincent Millay is my favorite classic female poet. I love the rhythm and rhyme of her poetry and her imagery and the way she puts words together, like smooth pebbles rolling on the tongue. Other than Emily Dickinson, there is no poet to compare with Millay.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I keep buying poetry and trying to read it to the kids and they are not into it but I love it! Hooray for poetry!

[Elizabeth Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book you keep with you in your nightstand trough the years and never fails to impress you.

[Jush]

My favorite poet.

[Andrew Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favourite poet. Widely devastating yet there is a beautiful quality to her prose that I cannot describe. It's so real.

'Time does not bring relief; you all have lied' is one of my personal favourites, perhaps not only because I enjoy it but because it makes me feel something few poems have. Millay is in a state of grief, accusing us, the readers, of lying. We have told her that time will bring relief and how wrong we were! She tells us of her lost love, how she misses him at the "weeping of the rain" and the "shrinking of the tide". As time marches on, the 'snow melts from every mountain-side', and 'last years leaves become smoke in every lane'. How impermanent life can be. Despite this inevitable change, she still feels the intolerable burden of last years love, weighing heavy on her heart. Why has she not been spared by life's transience?

So bad is this memory, there are many places she fears to go, "so with his memory they brim". She cannot bear the thought of being reminded of him so she chooses to avoid said places altogether. She leads a life of paralysis, unable to move. And then, just when she thinks she has found a place "where never fell his foot or shone his face", she exclaims with joy that "there is no memory of him here!".

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

The dark cloud of his memory is relentless, following her wherever she goes.

[Emilie Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This chick is so very rad. Apparently she peaked Back When and then it was super hip to like her, and then super not hop to like her, which is lame cause her poetry is just good whether or not it's trending.
Reading her poetry gets in your marrow in the way that Shakespeare or Reddit does: suddenly you're thinking in her language, and speaking in it too. Nobody says "beseech" in real life.
I'd say her best stuff is about love, of course, and the men coming and going from her life, and how fleeting yet sweet these little loves can be. She also has a very Strong Independent Woman vibe, like she-don't-need-no-man, which is a nice break from that old canon of Lovesick Damsel, pining for her lost lover. Here's an excellent excerpt that makes you go Yasss:

"I know a man that's a braver man
And twenty men as kind,
And what are you, that you should be
The one man in my mind?"

Been there, right??

[Juan Ramon Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of these poems are beautifully sorrow and joyous. To be honest many were hard for me to read but one can tell that there is a lot Millay says in between her context of the lines and rhymes of her poem. “First Fig” was a standout and there were other ones too but this one was the one that really spoke to me. She employs nature a lot in her poems and I was impressed with how emo and romantic all her poems were and how they mainly dealt with the impermanence of life.

[chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

our bi icon, greatest American poet, deserves all the love and more.

poems to def read
- renascence
- first fig & second fig
- plaid dress
- ebb
- spring
- witch wife
- apostrophe to men
- ode to silence
- the beanstalk

[Danielle Trent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, sublime

[Lucy Takeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly enjoyed several of the poems. A few I found overwrought. I tended to like the poems focused on Nature.

[Tim Werenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Czesław Miłosz has been my favorite poet for a long time, and whenever in the bookstore, I see the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay on the shelf right next to him, so, one day I grabbed this book and HOLY CRAP. Why didn't people tell me. What amazing work. So rich, I only read a little at a time, but it's great to have it by the bed all the time.

[Lewis Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edna has a way with words but just not my "Cup of Tea ".

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite poets

[Jamie Ander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the poems as I haven't read much lyrical poetry. It was really well written.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect melancholy poems for a rainy night.

[Mii · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great read!