EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Speaker: Betty Suchar, Member, on 19 January 1999

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), an American Pultizer prize winning poet with F. Scott Fitzgerald, represented the boldness and exuberance of the early 1920s.

The speaker started by explaining some of Miss Millay's childhood experiences in Camden, Maine which influenced her poetry and especially her early success with the long poem entitled `Renascence'.

Later in New York, Miss Millay reached the height of her popularity through poems which appealed to the youth of the time. One of the most often quoted poems begins with the line "My candle burns at both ends."

Although her work was overshadowed by such poets as T S. Eliot in the 1930s, her popularity continued and she was in great demand for poetry readings where her musical and dramatic skills enhanced the recitations. She was an intellectual whose love and knowledge of l6th and 17th century English writers became an inherent part of her life and nature and ultimately prevented her from joining with those like Eliot and Joyce who advocated a `modern' form.

In her final years she was desperately troubled by World War II and suffered from the critical reactions to the poetry she wrote encouraging America to join the war.

Her poetry for the current reader offers a deep understanding of the beauty and force of nature and the complexity of love.

Betty Suchar