By Ashley Lister
Late last month I was writing a paper about poetry. It was a general paper and I’ll be delivering it at a conference in a month’s time. But, whilst I was writing the paper I inadvertently ended up discovering Edna St Vincent Millay.
Not that she’d been missing and I found her.
And not that I didn’t know some of her poetry before. I’d encountered First Fig a few years ago and thought it was an entertaining piece of writing.
First FigBy Edna St Vincent Millay
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.[1]
But I didn’t know that Edna St Vincent Millay was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. I didn’t know that she was a poet and a playwright, a feminist and an activist, and openly bisexual in an era when being open about any type of sexuality was frowned upon.
Some commentators suggest that it’s easier to understand First Fig when the reader is aware of ESVM’s bisexuality. I don’t know whether I subscribe to this belief. I do know that discovering Edna St Vincent Millay’s writing made that research immensely more pleasurable than it had been.
Which is why, my advice for this week’s topic, would always be to take the time to discover new writers. Whether they’re alive or dead, new or old, proven or untested it’s worth taking the time to explore how someone unfamiliar puts pen to paper. Sometimes it might be a disaster. But, more often than not, the discovery can be incredible.
I Too Beneath Your Moon, Almighty Sexby Edna St. Vincent Millay
I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex,Go forth at nightfall crying like a cat,Leaving the lofty tower I laboured atFor birds to foul and boys and girls to vexWith tittering chalk; and you, and the long necksOf neighbours sitting where their mothers satAre well aware of shadowy this and thatIn me, that’s neither noble nor complex.Such as I am, however, I have broughtTo what it is, this tower; it is my own;Though it was reared To Beauty, it was wroughtFrom what I had to build with: honest boneIs there, and anguish; pride; and burning thought;And lust is there, and nights not spent alone.[2]
[1]Edna St Vincent Millay, (1923) ‘First Fig’ from Ballad of the Harp Weaver, and other short poems. [2] I Too Beneath Your Moon, Almighty Sex, http://risdyeswecan.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/i-too-beneath-your-moon.htmlAccessed 27th December 2012