Humoresque (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Humoresque by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a great title. It already starts me smiling - a made up perfect word.

The poem itself is great in that it rhymes, is short and is both serious (devastating) and funny. So talented!!

And yeah, I am so so tired right now, so even though this poem has a dark dark edge, I won't get into that. Just read it and grieve for the Narrator of the poem. Admire her also for her humor in the face of such tragedy.

Favorite line: "(Love, by whom I was beguiled, / Grant I may not bear a child.)"

(Love, by whom I was beguiled, Grant I may not bear a child.) - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23303#sthash.wKWiKquR.dpuf

Inland (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Inland by Edna St. Vincent Millay

There is such drama and tension in this poem! It starts off and I think it's going to be a poem about longing and how experience and familiarity inform desire. But then there is a sense of dread when you get to the last few lines. Where I got the impression that she was in a mental hospital and wishing for death/escape. Eep.

It's a well written poem - aside from the topic and tenseness, there is a rhyme scheme that you hardly notice b/c it sounds so natural.

As I write this post, I'm still thinking of what might be the story between the lines of this poem. Chilling.

Favorite line: "the sound / Of water sucking the hollow ledges"

the sound

Of water sucking the hollow ledges

First Fig (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Hehe. Her name is practically as long as the poem. This is one of the few poems that has transcended academia and filtered through becoming a common expression for everyone. I don't know why it's titled First Fig, but who doesn't know what the phrase to burn your candle at both ends means? And who would have suspected it derives from this small piece?

So, yeah, work real hard - and you can't maintain that pace, but while you are, you can accomplish sooo much.

Uh huh. Nods. That's what I take that idiom to mean, at least. I've got to run, but isn't it great that a poem written last century (I was about to write this century - sheesh, it's been ten years) is so entrenched in the common vernacular?

Favorite line: "My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night"

Exiled (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

It doesn't really fit my mood, but I can tell a good poem when I find it, so today's selection is Exiled (pdf) by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

I don't believe N is literally exiled. Life and its turns keep N from home, the places she finds familiar, that's all. I don't miss the sea as N does in this poem, but I have known enough people who had longed for the shores of their youth to know that Millay nails it.

Perhaps N's day was rough, nothing pleasant at all happened. She craved comfort, something familiar and true that she did not have to work at or think over. She was low and wanted the sea - her home - her childhood.

Favorite line: "Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound/Of the big surf that breaks all day."

Childhood Is The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

I don't know why people insist on centering text, but they do so to this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay making it seem trite and kid-like. While it may be about childhood, it is definitely not kid-like and it is extremely non-trite.

I first found this poem years ago and as I read it I was in awe because yes, that's pretty much it. While I've not had anyone but my grandparents pass away, I remember getting the gravity of the situation when my close friend lost her mother. I remember how my grandparents' deaths affected my parents and it's true, I think, that a new chapter of a person's life begins at that point.

I do love this poem for its wisdom and for the emotionality it has. I cannot help but get a little choked up at the line "But you do not wake up a month from then, two months/A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night/And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God!/Oh, God!"

I think the poem loses its sharpness and bite from stanza four to the end. They are still valid and all, I just think they lack the greatness of the start of the poem. I wish the first three stanzas were a separate poem. Or perhaps, the latter stanzas indicate the arrival to adulthood. The last stanza just sounds so adult. It's not expansive anymore. Just short, declarative sentences. It's a tight, little block. It's totally dry-eyed. "And [then N will] leave the house." This poem mirrors this biblical passage in that way: "When I was a child, I spake as a child...but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Favorite line: "Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies./Nobody that matters, that is."