Well-researched, this account presents Vincent as a rather savage figure. Her life, filled with self-indulgence, self-infanticizing behavior, alcoholism, and a craving for sexual attention, serves as an appropriately cautionary tale for those with artistic proclivities.

However, Milford seemed to struggle with integrating Norma Millay's present-day reflections about her sister into Vincent's "character arc" in a truly compelling manner. These asides often told us more about Norma's ego than about Edna's actual personality. The story concluded in a bizarre fashion - Vincent simply dies, and that's it. There are no notes about her funeral, obituaries, or her legacy. Edna was a celebrity in her own time. Would it be sufficient if Taylor Swift were to drop dead and her biographer simply signed off with "well that's that!"?

I don't regret reading this, but I was left feeling pitying and unfulfilled rather than inspired. This is especially the case after having already read a number of biographies about other female pioneers during this era.

“I want to propose to you a conspiracy of poets,” she proclaimed, “to offset the innumerable conspiracies which have made this world a nightmare.… We need the intuitive imagination of the great poets, to comprehend in even a small way the nature of the forces that are moving the world.”

I don't often read biographies. I was reading her collected poems and felt the need to learn more. Her words seemed very wild and primitive in some ways, yet they had a power. I'm so angry that I've never read much of Millay. I'm furious that she isn't taught more widely and that she isn't celebrated for her poetry. I would say that she lived life on her terms and broke open what it means to be human. One of my closest friends is a bit like Millay in some ways, with her charisma, joy, and sensuality. But I would say she doesn't have the dysfunctions that Millay did, such as addictions, ego, and arrogance. My friend loves widely and deeply and may fit the textbook definition of promiscuous, but even that definition is born of centuries of small-mindedness.

To reach deep into a well for these poems and to reach us, Millay lived wildly and hurt people along the way and was hurt by people along the way. So I can't say she was a role model, however you define that. But it is the quintessential angst of the artist. I wonder if she were alive today, if she would identify as non-binary or as a trans man. She played with masculine pronouns, dressed in a suit and tie, and went by Vincent, although she had no obvious physical gender dysphoria. Her great love affairs were with men, but she was bisexual and had a general dislike of women and few good friends. I think her complexity was barely discovered by herself. But what even greater masterpieces could she have written if she had been able, in the fullness of time, to be who she was completely? She died of a heart attack caused by a fall from years of alcoholism and multi-drug abuse.

Unfortunately, this book is like a deep dive into tabloid-style reportings of this affair, this letter to this person, this reply to this letter, this struggle, etc. I'm disappointed there wasn't more insight into her work, but there was some. The encounters the author had with Millay's sister were unnecessary and seemed off somehow. I'm not sure how much to trust the sister or the author. The poet Mary Oliver spent 7 years working with Norma to organize Millay's papers, so that portrayal doesn't ring true as Oliver was a teenager trying to recover from her sexual abuse from her father and she found a home there. Oliver's first book was said to show Millay's influence most clearly, so I did go back to my New and Selected Poems Volume One to see. But as I read Millay, I saw the influence in future Oliver, and again, I'm stunned I didn't read her before. I think she has not been collected well, and more of Millay's poems are about love, supposedly. I remember reading a few and feeling I couldn't relate in any way, and it was a woman trying to write in the masculine style so revered at the time.

Her word love is not love as I define it. Perhaps if you go into reading her with the definition of love as the very immature, incipient definition of infatuation, of passion, of cathexis, which is not true love, which ultimately I think Oliver redeemed for her in a way as her poetic/spiritual heir. Millay never grew out of the whirl of passion and was depressed and addicted because of it. She was a combination of rock star and prophet, and her readings in person sound like a rock concert with all that adulation and worship. She never transcended it in her personal life, but maybe, just maybe, the reach of some of her poems transcend it now.

An early journal entry: “As she reads she forgets time, holds her breath; she feels, she said, “an unearthly happiness which opened suddenly outward like a door, before me, revealing through the very tangible radiance in which I stood as if I stood in the path of the sun … even to the edge of nausea and over it, and dropping directly before me a bottomless abyss in which every colour of ecstasy moved like a cloud, now drifting close, now inexorably drawn away, and a wind from depths unthinkable puffing out my pinafore, and the tops of my doll-size slippers sticking out very black and conspicuous from the brink of the precipice into the air above the conscious void.”

The ending of her first poem Renascence which is stunning:

…But my hushed voice will answer
Thee. I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!
The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

The poem details an experience where she stands overwhelmed by the grandeur of the land and tries to touch the sky, and then dies it seems and is buried in the earth but then is resurrected as someone whose soul is wide and deep. Not exactly my taste overall, the middle is like the circles of hell in Dante, but that was the time and what the literati wanted. What I see in Oliver is rooted more deeply in soul and nature and trimmed the excess and made it her own, so I prefer that. Simply, the power was that Millay had a way with words.

February 5, 1913 journal entry:

“…buildings everywhere, seven & eight stories to million and billion stories, washing drying on the roofs.… Children on roller skates playing tag on the sidewalk, smokestacks and smokestacks, and windows and windows, and signs way up high on the tops of factories and cars and taxi-cabs,—and noise, yes, in New York you can see the noise….left all my bad habits at home,—bridge-pad, cigarette-case, and cocktail-shaker. I brought with me all my good habits,—diary, rubbers, and darning-cotton.… I run in my rut now like a well-directed wheel. Sometimes, it is true, I feel that I am exceeding the speed-limit. But I seldom skid, and when I do there is very little splash.”

JOURNEY

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes. Yet onward! Cat-birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.
Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,—sharp underfoot
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs—
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road;
A gateless garden, and an open path;
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.

INTO THE GOLDEN VESSEL OF GREAT SONG

Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie,in love and rest;
Not we,—articulate, so, but with the tongue
Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.
Longing alone is singer to the lute;
Let still on nettles in the open sigh
The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute
As any man, and love be far and high,
That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit
Found on the ground by every passer-by.

from an interview after the Pulitzer: “…what lies deepest of all is my love for this silly old America of ours. Why does it do what it sometimes does? Why does it think so foolishly sometimes? It is because life is brown and tepid for many of us. I want to write so that those who read me will say … “Life can be exciting and free and intense.” I really mean it!”

“Vincent, especially, made girls feel that passion was clean and beautiful.… She appeared at a moment when American youth had need of her.… [for] the lesson of beauty that she taught them: for the revolt she expressed was not merely away from a stuffy prison and also toward an open meadow.… there was an unmistakable wind of pure dawning in what she did.” Friend Arthur Ficke

Author: “Now, imagine this scene at Steepletop earlier in their lives. One sister, whose house it was, enters the room like a lion; she tosses her curly red mane, licks the inside of her wrist, draws it carefully over her ears as if it were a paw, and roars. The youngest enters the room like a Model T Ford, batting her eyes like headlights on bright, making a noise like a horn honking. Only one of the three sisters will survive to tell all the stories she knows, and that is the sister who now sits in the room, scooping out Stilton, drinking a scotch and soda while waving an Egyptian cigarette aloft, laughing, singing a snatch of song, and watching. She is the sister who tells the tales: Norma Millay.”

TRANQUILITY AT LENGTH, WHEN AUTUMN COMES

Tranquility at length, when autumn comes,
Will lie upon the spirit like that haze 
Touching far islands on fine autumn days
With tenderest blue, like bloom on purple plums;
Harvest will ring, but not as summer hums,
With noisy enterprise—to broaden, raise,
Proceed, proclaim, establish: autumn stays
The marching year one moment; stills the drums.
Then sits the insistent cricket in the grass;
But on the gravel crawls the chilly bee;
And all is over that could come to pass
Last year; excepting this: the mind is free
One moment, to compute, refute, amass,
Catalogue, question, contemplate, and see.

It is truly astonishing to see the vast amount of research that has gone into this biography.

After reading it, I have this profound feeling as if I truly knew Edna St. Vincent Millay. I have a great love for delving into the lives of various artists during the Jazz Age.

The author has managed to gather an amazing wealth of detail about her life, including her family, friends, and her deepest ambitions.

Moreover, it provides a fascinating look into the story and meaning behind much of her poetry. So much of this information comes directly from her journals or her sister's recollections.

Due to its thoroughness, the book is quite long. Being a biography rather than a memoir, which I often prefer, it can be an intense read.

I simply can't fathom that I could learn anything more by reading another book on this subject. This one truly seems to be complete.

It offers a comprehensive and in-depth exploration of Edna St. Vincent Millay's life and works, leaving no stone unturned.

It is a remarkable piece of literature that will surely appeal to anyone interested in the life and times of this remarkable artist.

Overall, I highly recommend this biography to anyone looking for a detailed and engaging account of Edna St. Vincent Millay's life.

Zelda is a complex and fascinating figure, as vividly portrayed in "Zelda: A Biography" by Nancy Milford.

The book delves into the life of Zelda, exploring her tumultuous relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald.

We learn about her early years, her vibrant personality, and her artistic aspirations.

Zelda's story is one of passion, creativity, and struggle.

She was a woman ahead of her time, defying traditional gender roles and expectations.

However, her relationship with Fitzgerald was not without its challenges, and their lives became intertwined in a web of love, fame, and mental illness.

Milford's biography provides a detailed and intimate look at Zelda's life, painting a vivid picture of a woman who left an indelible mark on American literature and culture.

Published on 1/22/2018, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the lives of the Fitzgeralds and the Roaring Twenties.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a remarkable woman. She was not only a poet but also an actress and a playwright. Her mother's words, «No quiero que dejes que hagan de tu espíritu algo convencional. Se puede aprender en cualquier lugar, pero quiero que aprendas a pensar y a soñar por cuenta propia. No creas que todo lo que te digan sea necesariamente cierto, porque lo que tú debes procurar es que la libertad rija tus pensamientos y tus sueños», seemed to guide her life.

Millay was intelligent, witty, sensitive, and a feminist. She was also polyamorous, charming, mischievous, tender, and captivating. In 1922, she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, a testament to her genius. She was in love with life and a traveler, and her poetry readings were as popular as those of a pop diva.

She was a seductive, affectionate, independent, tenacious, self-assured, charismatic, ambitious, intuitive, and persevering woman. She was an ungovernable Free Soul who lived life (both the good and the bad) without restrictions and broke molds. Her life was like a candle that burned at both ends, as she wrote in her poem. But despite its brevity, it gave a lovely light.

Vincent is one of my favorite poets, and I fell in love with her the moment I met her. She has a special place in my personal library. Today, her biography has become one of those unforgettable books that I cherish with love. I am infinitely grateful to my friend Elur for the wonderful gift.

«My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends...
It gives a lovely light!».

So far, amazing.

This simple phrase holds a world of meaning. It implies that up until this point, something has been truly remarkable,超乎寻常的. It could refer to an experience, an achievement, or a discovery.

When we say "so far, amazing," we are expressing our sense of wonder and excitement. It makes us look forward to what might come next.

Maybe it's the continuation of a journey, the progress of a project, or the unfolding of a story.

Whatever it is, we know that it has the potential to be even more amazing than what has come before.

So, let's keep our eyes open and our hearts receptive, ready to embrace the amazing that lies ahead.

I'm biased because Edna St. Vincent Millay is my absolute favorite poet. So learning more about her was very interesting to me.

The book itself is incredibly well researched. It really delves into the wild life of this amazing woman.

She's not really someone you can idolize or look up to in the traditional sense. However, she is someone you can fall in love with, and that shines through beautifully in this biography.

I will warn that it is a bit heavy. Getting through the entire thing does involve a little slogging. But for someone truly interested in the subject matter, it is 100% worth it. You will be immersed in the complex and fascinating world of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The details provided about her life, her relationships, and her work are both captivating and enlightening. It's a journey that will make you appreciate her art and her as a person even more.

This is one long book and I truly desired more. It wasn't merely about having more pages. What I craved was more poetry, and an abundance more of salaciousness. Alas, Nancy Milford is a patient professional. She meticulously presents well-documented facts with very little innuendo.

The story of Edna is simply beyond fascinating. This somewhat homely girl hailing from Maine employs her mind and the ability to penetrate people's facades to charm her way through life. However, there is so much more to this story. She works extremely hard and rightfully deserves her successes. She has a deep longing to be loved and cared for. She can never break free from the deeply ingrained fear of destitution and abandonment that she endured throughout her childhood. But she also never appears to release the wild passion that fills a particular group of intelligent young children. Through her poetry, we witness how she ultimately tempers this intense pastoral ardor into sometimes subtly bold plays, poems, and other writings that touch upon the present moment of her time.

And then there is her mother, her sisters, her friendships, her dalliances, her addictions, her sadness, and her savage fiery-red beauty. Each aspect adds another layer to the complex and captivating tapestry that is Edna's life.

After six or eight months, I have FINALLY finished this biography. In fact, what I would really call it is the complete collection of every letter ever written by or to this great poet. If you are looking for an incredibly in-depth and dense look at a great poet's life from birth to the moment of her death, then this is it.

She led a very interesting and bohemian life, which is why I couldn't let myself abandon the book. However, the author was afraid to really herald her moments of bisexual promiscuity and ownership, which really exasperated me. Also, the author jumps from name to name with hardly any context at times, causing confusion.

Like another review, I would say that this book is best read by massive Edna St. Vincent Millay fans. It is not a biography to idly pick up. It requires a certain level of dedication and interest in the poet's life and work to fully appreciate and understand the content.

This was indeed quite interesting.

However, I was not a devotee of her writing style.

It seems she has been extremely meticulous in putting down on paper only what she had gleaned from Millay's notes, the journals of her contemporaries, and from her sister.

Nonetheless, without reflection and the biographer's effort in making sense of these numerous details, it comes across as a long torrent of details that do not necessarily coalesce into the themes of a life.

Also, Mitford appears to have conspicuously deviated from clearly reporting the many relationships that Millay had with other women.

She refrained from calling her relationship with Eugen Bossevain dysfunctional (which it seems to be, bordering on controlling or perhaps even abusive).

Moreover, she omitted reporting many things that might be true but which Millay's sister did not wish to be in print (Norma Millay was her main source and had clearly set some strict limits, as reported in the text).

So, I finally completed this, but I do not feel as though I have a good understanding of Vincent Millay as a person.

If I can locate another biography that is not whitewashed and sanitized, I might pick it up.

I just couldn't care enough about Edna.

She was a mystery to me, always keeping her true feelings hidden beneath a veneer of calm.

I tried to get to know her better, but she seemed to push me away at every turn.

Maybe it was because she was afraid of getting hurt, or maybe she just didn't trust me.

Whatever the reason, I found myself growing more and more frustrated with her.

I wanted to help her, to be there for her, but she wouldn't let me.

I knew that I couldn't force her to open up, but I also couldn't give up on her.

So I continued to try, hoping that one day she would see that I was sincere and that she could trust me with her heart.

The thing about biographies is truly fascinating.

I often find myself floating around the house for days, completely immersed in the role of either the dowdy best friend or the glamorous best friend of the subject, depending on my biofeedback alignment.

And in the case of this particular biography, I floated on it for WEEKS.

It's just an amazing combination of interesting circumstances that unfold like a captivating story.

The presence of genius, along with the weird and wonderful personalities, adds an extra layer of intrigue.

Everything about it is simply fabulous.

Moreover, the subject happens to be a darn good poet, which further enriches the narrative and makes the whole experience even more engaging.

I can't get enough of this biography and the world it has opened up to me.