[PREV - BLANK_VERSE] [TOP]
MALAISE
February 1, 2009
Edna St. Vincent Millay was originally known
in poetry circles for her poem "Renascene" -- That was in 1912,
it lost a poetry contest over the objections "the Lyric Year".
of the contest organizer, and the actual
winner later agreed she really deserved the
prize.
It's easy to see how on a quick, superficial
reading one might be turned off by
"Renascene" -- it's first few lines sound
like a parody of Frost-bitten poesey:
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
The choosen structure is difficult
to take seriously: rhyming couplets
of short lines (iambic quadrameter)
are almost guaranteed to generate
a sing-songy doggerel.
One of the things that's remarkable
about the poem is how few lines sound A language like Spanish
forced (a minor peeve of mine: the use may make rhymes easier to
of awkward germanic syntax to pull out find, but English has the
a rhyme on demand -- of these you will edge in sheer numbers of
find none, in "Renascene"). synonyms-- and in range of
grammatical constructs.
But even more remarkable is that the
poem builds from that (unpromising?)
beginning to an odd conceit about
the need to hold back the bubble of
reality to avoid being crushed between
earth and sky...
"The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, --
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by."
Millay the poet might be taken as a pivotal
figure... a traditional, formal poet living
in and writing poems about the Modern age.
Her notoriety beyond the confines
of the Village was owed first to a Within the Village, for many years,
successful anti-war play she wrote Millay was primarily known as one
in 1919, but was really cemented in of the Provincetown Players.
place by her second collection of
poems "A Few Figs from Thistles" DUSTY_MYSTERY
(1920) where she played poet
laurete of bohemia -- roping in the Louis Untermeyer in his
rubes with hints of promiscuous "Modern Poetry" expresses
loose living. distain for "Figs":
"although one of Miss
"Figs" opens with the well known Millay's most popular
short (quoted in it's entirety): collections, is her
least commendable
My candle burns at both ends; performance. In way of
It will not last the night; these self-conscious
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-- flippancies. Miss Millay
It gives a lovely light! has exchanged her poetic
bithright for a mess of
cleverness. ... the
And lines from later poems include: greater part of this
volume smirks with a
"I loved you Wednesday, --yes-- but what facile sophistication,
Is that to me?" admiring it's own pertly
cynical pirouttes."
"After all's said and after all's done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?" In other words,
here we have
rock n' roll.
(And then there's sonnet 43,
"What lips my lips have
kissed", but that was
apparently not collected in
any volume before the
"Collected Poems"...)
--------
[NEXT - MELEE]