First Fig and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

First Fig and Other Poems Reviews

• 
  Andd

  Maybe there is one poem that you remember
  from times long ago.
  Is it the rhyming couplets?
  The repetition?
  The ordinary events?
  No need to analyze.
  Enjoy how the poem makes you feel.
• 
  Shay Caroline

  When I was in middle school--or junior high, as we called it then--a hated English teacher made us all miss an event that most of us wanted to be part of, in order to study Edna St. Vincent Millay, thus setting me dead against both of them for decades after. What an old lady name anyway, she couldn't possibly have anything to say to me! Well....wrong.
  
  I am grateful that I finally gave Edna a chance after a friend introduced me to her poem "Recuerdo." Old lady my eye, here was a passionate soul! Her poems are full to the brim with desire, an eye for nature, the desire to get up and go, love who she might, and make gorgeous poetry out of all of it, even the regrets. My favorites here, besides "Recuerdo" were "Spring", "Song of a Second Spring", "Prayer To Persephone" and the light-hearted "The Bean-Stalk." The only poem I didn't like at all was the lengthy and --to me at least--dull "Ode To Silence", which read like a roll-call of mythological figures, all to no very thrilling point. The rest? Amazing.
  
  But wait, there's more! I've never particularly been a fan of the sonnet form...until now. Millay was an acknowledged master at it, and after reading hers--and there are many in this volume--I'm converted. I read them all multiple times, first for the emotion and meaning, and then again to see how she did it, complete with margin notes. Hey, she told me it was okay. In the included poem "The Poet and His Book", she writes "Read me, margin me with scrawling", and so I did. I did!
  
  I am so glad I gave her poetry a chance, despite Mrs. Griffith of middle school infamy. The whole book was a joy and a revelation. Here is an unconventional woman who could write the most conventional forms in such a way as to set them on fire with her words. Very much recommended.
• 
  Lucy

  IV
  Only until this cigarette is ended,
  A little moment at the end of all,
  While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
  And in the firelight to a lance extended,
  Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
  The broken shadow dances on the wall,
  I will permit my memory to recall
  The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
  And then adieu,--farewell!--the dream is done.
  Yours is a face of which I can forget
  The color and the features, every one,
  The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
  But in your day this moment is the sun
  Upon a hill, after the sun has set.
• 
  Chrystal

  2.5 stars. So disappointed with this collection. Other than "First Fig" which is a work of genius, I couldn't find more than 2 or 3 poems that appealed to me even slightly. Most of them were VERY long, rambling poems that seemed to be mostly about weeds and/or thistles. I am willing to concede that the poem's shortcomings exist from my end and not the poet's, but they were just indecipherable and...boring.
• 
  Robin

  I like the 'Second April' poems more than the 'A Few Figs from Thistles' collection. The 'Second April' part is richer emotionally and lyrically more developed. This Dover edition contains all of the poems from those two originally separate collections.
• 
  Alberto

  First Fig drives you to live your life the way you want to.
  
  EL. 17.
• 
  Joanna Luchese

  incredible as always with Edna, good to read in mourning april:
  “When I too long have looked upon your face,
  Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
  Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
  And terrible beauty not to be endured,
  I turn away reluctant from your light,
  And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
  A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
  From having looked too long upon the sun.
  Then is my daily life a narrow room
  In which a little while, uncertainly,
  Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
  Among familiar things grown strange to me
  Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
  Till I become accustomed to the dark.”
• 
  Genevieve Marie

  I am hesitant about reading poetry because it is so personal and varying. At first I did not think I was going to like this, but as I read on I was surprised to find poems that snuck up on me and surprised me with their intensity, especially the particularly short poems. Definitely worth every read at a later date.
• 
  Jillian

  Really just was not into it.
• 
  Olivia

  Edna St. Vincent Millay has been my favorite poet since I was 10 when I discovered her poem "Afternoon on a Hill" for a poetry project in 5th grade. It's short, sweet, and easy to remember. This collection of poems beautifully recreates the same joy I experienced. Millay brings out the magic of the mundane with her style and content which can be seen in my favorite from this collection "The Unexplorer."
• 
  Kelly

  "What should I be but a prophet and a liar, whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar? Tethed on a crucifix and cradled under water, what should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?"