 Poetry: February 01, 2017 Issue [#8107] |
  Poetry
This week: Edna St. Vincent Millay Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady
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The Spring And The Fall
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.
In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.
Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurt my days.
But that it went in little ways.
On February 22nd, 1892, Cora St Vincent Millay and her husband Henry Millay welcomed Edna St. Vincent Millay into their family. Henry left when Edna was eight, leaving her mother to raise her and her three sisters. Cora raised the girls while working as a practical nurse. The family was poor, but this did not deter Cora for making sure the girls were cultured and she exposed them to a wide variety of materials and put the girls in music lessons. Cora’s inspired her girls to strive for the things they wanted. In Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, she wrote this about her mother. “I cannot remember once in the life when you were not interested in what I was working on, or even suggested that I should put it aside for something else.”
Millay’s first poems were published in a children's magazine St Nicholas. Her first works were not nationally recognized. Her mother saw a poetry contest hosted by The Lyric Year and Millay submitted several poems to the contest. Her entry “Renascence,” was liked so much by one editor he took it upon himself to write her even though her poem did not win any prizes. The Lyric Year did publish her poem “Renascence,” in November 1912. As a result she won a scholarship to Vassar to continue her studies.
In 1917 Millay published her first Renascence and Other Poems. Millay moved to New York after leaving Vassar. She found a job writing for a left-wing journal, The Masses, who campaigned against the United States involvement in the First World War. While her views on the war were sympathetic to the socialist groups, her poetry never became political. Millay had several love affairs during her first couple of years in New York, among them were, Floyd Dell and Arthur Davison Ficke. In 1919 Millay started working on her play “Ode to Silence.” Then in 1920 Millay published Reedy’s Mirror followed by Second April in 1921. Her poems were now being published in Vanity Fair.
Millay then starting writing under the pen name Nancy Boyd. She wrote a total of eight stories for Ainslee’s and one for Metropolitan, under her pen name. In the 1920’s Millay spent much of her time writing plays, poems and shorties. Millay wed Eugene Jan Boissevain, in July of 1923. She also published next volume of poems, The Harp Weaver that same year. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Her next volume of poems, The Buck and the Snow, in 1928. Followed by Fatal Interview, in 1931. Wine From These Grapes was published 1934. By the Second World War Millay’s poetry became patriotic, she published Not to be Spattered by His Blood in 1941, Murder at Lidice, in 1942 and Poem and Prayer for an Invading Army in 1944.
In 1944 under the strain of deadlines and publications Millay suffered a mental breakdown. She was hospitalized for some time. This left Millay unable to write for several years. In 1949 Millay’s husband died after suffering a stroke. Millay took the death hard and started drinking so heavily she needed to be hospitalized. After a month of hospitalization, she went back home and spent a very lonely year mostly keeping to herself and writing. Edna St Vincent Millay died on October 19th, 1950 of a heart attack. Her final poems, Mine the Harvest four years after her death in 1954.
The Dream
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.
Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,—
White and awful the moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
There was a shutter loose,—it screeched!
Swung in the wind,—and no wind blowing!—
I was afraid, and turned to you,
Put out my hand to you for comfort,—
And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,
Under my hand the moonlight lay!
Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
But if I weep it will not matter,—
Ah, it is good to feel you there!
Sorrow
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,—
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.
People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] is:
Frightened
by the frost bitten winds of winter
the Ode Master's
arthritic handwriting trembles.
As smoke blows across a paper moon
leaving charcoals smudges
on the walls,
the ancient poet
hobbles to the window.
Sirens,
like fingernails on a chalkboard,
penetrate his brain.
generating lines and stanzas eulogizing
those marked
by the Reaper's scythe.
Honorable mention:
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These are the rules:
1) You must use the words I give in a poem or prose with no limits on length.
2) The words can be in any order and anywhere throughout the poem and can be any form of the word.
3) All entries must be posted in your portfolio and you must post the link in this forum, "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] by February 27, 2017.
4) The winner will get 3000 gift points and the poem will be displayed in this section of the newsletter the next time it is my turn to post (March 1, 2017)
The words are:
collide, mother, rattle, rolling, tumble, shake, clouds, sand
 Good luck to all
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