Early Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Early Poems Reviews

• 
  Maggie Roessler

  LOVED this. Often I can't summon the energy to devote myself to poetry, but these poems sprang out and demanded I pay attention. From the first poem on I was hooked. Her themes accomodate both wit and melodrama while her language trips along with sweet ease.
  
  I wasn't equally in love with each piece of course. The first book has a lot of melancholy stuff about death and longing, which was nice but not particularly interesting to me at this moment. Then the second book bored me a bit with all this tralala so light and free and so above monogamy... Historically interesting, but again, didn't click with me. The pieces that shook me up and down were the ones about how to deal with beauty. Sometimes it is too much, and as a paltry human you cannot properly meet it - she describes that frustration and overwhelmedness perfectly.
  
  I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
  Between me and the crying of the frogs?
  Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass.
  
  Also, the pieces about longing for water and for travel are golden...
  
  My heart is warm with the friends I make
  And better friends I'll not be knowing;
  Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
  No matter where it's going.
• 
  Carrie Poppy

  Fine
• 
  Hope

  There is a streak of genius in much of Millay's poetry, but it is too tortured to really be enjoyable. Most of the poems are about death or lost love. In "Spring" she brilliantly spews out her anger at the month of April:
  
  To what purpose, April, do you return again?
  Beauty is not enough.
  You can no longer quiet me with the redness
  Of little leaves opening stickily.
  I know what I know.
  The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
  The spikes of the crocus.
  The smell of the earth is good.
  It is apparent that there is no death.
  But what does that signify?
  Not only under ground are the brains of men
  Eaten by maggots.
  Life in itself
  Is nothing,
  An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
  It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
  April
  Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
  
• 
  Jess

  4 stars.
  
  I heard that this was a great book to start with to ease into poetry (and as I am fairly new to the world of poetry--that sounded great). I really enjoyed Millay's work. Her themes range from nature, spirituality, loss and mourning, and love.
  
  Here are sections or poems I liked a lot: "part of your heart / Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled / In the damp earth with you. I have been torn / In two, and suffer for the rest of me." "Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: / Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!" and lastly I'll add "To what purpose, April, do you return again? / Beauty is not enough. / You can no longer quiet me with the redness / Of little leaves opening stickily. / I know what I know / ... It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, / April / Comes like an idiot, babbling, and strewing flowers."
• 
  Kassandra

  I read this on a recommendation from a Booktuber! She praised this book very highly and said it was good to read it the fall! I did read it and I really enjoyed it! She was right this is a great small poetry book for fall. Her writing is very beautiful! I would love to read more of Edna St. Vincent Millay! I am not going to critique poetry because I am not an expert in it and I don’t read it that often!
• 
  Nicky Kapsali

  4.5 ⭐
• 
  Holly

  This collection consisted of three of Millay’s books, my favorite being “A Few Figs from Thistles.” I had a hard time following many of her longer poems but the shorter ones hit spot on.
• 
  Dinah

  Not actually the first time I've read through this anthology, but I had the privilege of seeing the tiny row house in Greenwich Village where this brilliant lady wrote and stepped into the Cherry Lane Theater which I didn't know she founded but still exists, and it seemed time for a revisiting.
  
  Vincent never disappoints.
  
  This collection is particularly heavy on the poems about death, sadness, and feeling lovelorn, but that suits me just fine. It'd be nice to have a little more acknowledgment that the woman had a bit of a Dorothy Parker streak in her as well, but honestly I could read the dreary stuff for days and not miss the snark a whit. Plus I always forget how openly queer her work was, long before "queer" was even a thing -- remember how there was a huge sexual revolution in the 20's that Americans choose to overlook completely? Vincent does. (Also she went by "Vincent" because she hated "Edna," you have to love this woman before even cracking the book open).
  
  "Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,
  And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse --
  And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
  There's this little street and this little house."
  
  Tell me with a straight face that doesn't belong in the same canon as "And miles to go before I sleep. / And miles to go before I sleep." You can't.
• 
  Matthew Metzdorf

  A poet I would like to learn more about. Her poetry is deeply lyric, formalized, and somewhat daring considering the time during which she wrote. Known for her sonnets and other poems that utilized rhyme and meter in the tradition of the poets who had come before, yet her contemporaries included folks like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the whole cadre of modernist poets rejecting many of the conventions of those who came before. Daring, beautiful, and enigmatic. Often funny, too, surprisingly enough. Definitely worth the buck I spent to buy this book.
• 
  Michele

  Millay definitely mastered the sonnet, but the mood & theme of most poems centered on death, so I didn't find this an inspiring collection.
  Exile was the poem I enjoyed the most. Ironically, within the opening bio pages, I love the quote Arthur Davidson Ficke used to describe Millay: ". . . an exile far out upon the world's forsaken rim, her wild feet forever seeking Beauty,"
• 
  Emma-jane Stevens

  I'm new to Edna's work as I usually go further into the past for my poetry, but everything I have read by her has been a pleasure and she is already my favourite 20th Century poet.
• 
  Jamie

  3 1/2 stars.
• 
  Faye

  Originally read it when I was young - it was good to revisit it.