Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

About Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on February 22, 1892 in Maine. She published poems, plays, political writings, and a libretto for an opera.

Millay started to gain fame with the publication of the poem "Renascence" when she was nineteen. It was an entry in a poetry contest, and she came in fourth place. The other people whose poems were recognized above hers said hers was by far the best.

Her poem "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver" won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. She was only the third woman to win this prize for poetry.

During the first World War, Millay was a known pacifist, but from 1940 on, she supported the Allied Forces, and even wrote poetry to support their efforts. This work for the war hurt her reputation among her peers in poetry circles.

Millay and her husband lived in a farmhouse in Austerlitz, NY for 25 years together. Her husband wanted to create a place that would be conducive to her writing. The house at Steepletop has now become a museum that is open to the public, where tours are available through the house and gardens.

Edna St. Vincent Millay passed away on October 19, 1950.

References

    Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

  • I, Being Born A Woman And Distressed

    Famous Poem

    in Famous Love Poems

    I, being born a woman and distressed
    By all the needs and notions of my kind,
    Am urged by your propinquity to find
    Your person fair, and feel a certain zest

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    • Stories 0
    • Shares 42
    • Favorited 2
    • Votes 10
    • Rating 4.10
  • What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why

    Famous Poem

    in Famous Sad Love Poems

    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

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    • Stories 0
    • Shares 111
    • Favorited 3
    • Votes 28
    • Rating 4.04
    • Poem of the Day
  • Love Is Not All

    Famous Poem

    in Famous Sad Love Poems

    Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
    Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
    Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
    And rise and sink and rise and sink again;

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    • Stories 0
    • Shares 1235
    • Favorited 15
    • Votes 255
    • Rating 4.40
  • Time Does Not Bring Relief (Sonnet II)

    Famous Poem

    in Famous Death Poems

    Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
    Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
    I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
    I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

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    • Stories 12
    • Shares 3153
    • Favorited 46
    • Votes 971
    • Rating 4.36
    Featured Shared Story

    I relate to her deep pain, I lost my precious son Chris a little over 3 years ago, suddenly. Now my heart and my soul are shattered forever on this earth, my life altered. I'm yet in that...

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  • Dirge Without Music

    Famous Poem

    in Famous Death Poems

    I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
    So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
    Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
    With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

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    • Stories 0
    • Shares 1366
    • Favorited 9
    • Votes 261
    • Rating 4.21


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