St. Vincent

Wonderful what the Internet can do.

Consider it—you’ve wondered often and on for years about that “St. Vincent” in Edna St. Vincent Millay. But by the time you’ve summoned the energy to find your keys to go to the library to look it up, life has intruded.

The telephone has rung….

The cat puked on the floor!

And it’s occurred to you—why bother? Who, beyond Edna (long dead), cares?

Now, of course, you’re sitting in your favorite chair. The iPad (that wonderful aPple product) is on your lap. And you have the answer in seconds.

Well, Voracious Reader, I can now tell you. Yes, she was named after the hospital in New York City.

Not the only mystery about her. She was a tomboy—OK, incipient dyke—and went by the name of Vincent in her teens. Principal of the school didn’t buy in, and called her any female name beginning with “V.” Mother was a nurse who divorced her husband on the grounds of “financial irresponsibility.”

Well, she gets started early, our Vincent, when her poem “Renascence” gets fourth place in a national competition, though the first place winner said hers was better, and the second place winner gave his prize money to her. Lives in Greenwich Village, has affairs with both men and women, is an outspoken feminist. A wealthy benefactress hears her poetry—as well as her piano playing—and sends her off to Vassar.

Here she is—a dish!

Also a nice magnolia tree….

She wins the Pulitzer in her early thirties, and then marries, though both she and her husband had lovers throughout their marriage. They buy a big farmhouse in upstate New York, and a 800 acres island off the coast of Maine.

In the process, she may have settled down, a bit. She supports the Allies vigorously in World War II, and pays for it. Wikipedia reports that “Merle Rubin noted: "She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism."

She dies young—fitting for the poet who burnt the candle at both ends—after falling down the stairs in her big house. Her sister Norma and husband move in, and become friends with a 17-year old Mary Oliver. Oliver stays for seven years at the house, and helps organize Millay’s papers.

Oliver goes on to become a major poet and wins the Pulitzer herself.

She seems to have had it all. The respect of her peers: Thomas Hardy—yes, the English novelist and poet—said that there were two great attractions in the United States, the skyscraper and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Recognition—always nice to have a Pulitzer! Love in many guises.

And enough money for a little island.

For all her merriness, there seems something dated and sad, now, about Millay. The adventuresome, outspoken girl has somehow become an older, historical woman. The dyke has become an icon….

I cannot but remember

I cannot but remember     When the year grows old—

October—November—

How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows

Go down across the sky,

And turn from the window

With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves

Were brittle on the ground,

And the wind in the chimney

Made a melancholy sound.

She had a look about her

That I wish I could forget—

The look of a scared thing

Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall

The soft spitting snow!

And beautiful the bare boughs

Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire,

And the warmth of fur,

And the boiling of the kettle

Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember

When the year grows old—

October—November—

How she disliked the cold!