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? march t. 2002
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Ahead of her time
A new biographical study of a sexy, radical poet
by
O riana G reen
by Giant
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A benefit for the Hambleton Project
Supporting lesbians facing cancer and other life threatening illnesses
Saturday March 16
Tickets at Ticketmaster,
the Aladdin Box Office and It’s My Pleasure
¡iie t r T m
J lw ll ' l l W
Rufus Wainwright
m Aladdi
Tuesday March 12w
Produced by House of Blues
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Ml
l HH" ì HKRSÌ SE MILWAUKIE AT P OW EL L • 503-233-1994 • www.aladdm-theater.com
T I C K E T S AT THE A L A O O I N B O * O F F I C E 1 ALL T I C K E T M A S T E R O U T L E T S O R C H A R G E 8V P H O N E 503 224 4400
received a volume of poetry by
Edna St. Vincent Millay for my
12th birthday. As a teen-ager I
memorized many of her poems
and loved to go off into the wotxls
and shout them to the sky— an
inherently natural thing to do,
since her work is so rooted in her
spiritual connection to nature.
Although 1 wholeheartedly rec
ommend readers acquaint them
selves with the poetry of Millay, it
is the extraordinary life she led in
the first half of the 20th century
that fascinates most. An early femi
nist and radical innovator, she
blithely changed American ideas
about what women could do simply
by livjng an unorthodox life.
Millay was as adventurous in
her sexuality as she was in all other
aspects, and all her most important
early connections were with
women.
Savage Beauty (Random House,
2001; $29.95 hardcover) is the new
authorized biography by Nancy
Milford, who had access to all of
the poet’s papers through her only
surviving sister, Nonna. The author
spent 20 years plowing through
what sounds like truckloads (if dis
organized material to write this
Kxik and has conveyed the 58 years of her rest
less life in chronological order.
W hat’s missing is historical context to
emphasize the rarity (if many of Millay’s actions
and to interpret her experience for 21st century
readers. Nowhere is this lack more felt than in
the recounting (it her college years ar Vassar.
Millay entered college at age 21 on a full
scholarship. She often chafed at the strict rules
designed tor younger women. Petite, with flam
ing red hair and brilliant green eyes, she pre
sented herself with great drama—dressing with
flair and exhibiting the posture of one who is
steeped in self-confidence.
In fact, she frequently jeopardized her edu
cation by defiantly maintaining overt affairs
with female classmates, who besieged her with
passionate love letters, such as this one: “How I
want to come hack to you— yes 1 know I have
just left— hut the longing in me never leaves
and this is a night that seems for you and me.’’
A t the same time, Millay corresponded
with one (if her many male suitors to whom
she had, as Milford pejoratively writes, “con
fessed” her love (if women. A rthur HiXiley’s
response reflected the devaluing of lesbian
relationships at that time: “Even if you had
cared for a girl, and even if you had given
yourself (so far as you could), 1 do not think 1
should care greatly.”
Millay, at least, was offended by that and
replied to the insensitive Brit, “G(id forbid
that 1 should give my heart to a dyspeptic
Englishman!”
After college Millay and her sister moved to
barely habitable rooms in Greenwich Village,
already a haven for free spirits. The p<iet wrote
of a novel method to acquaint her sister with
the language she’d hear there: “So we sat darn
ing socks and practiced the use of profanity.
Needle in, shit. Needle out, piss. Needle in,
fuck. Needle out, cunt."
Despite her diminutive size, Millay never
NANCY MILFORD
AUT HOR OF ZEIDA
St. Vincent
saw herself as a victim. W hen two young men
tried to force their attentions on the sisters
out walking in th e country, Edna (or Vincent,
as she preferred to he called) summoned them
closer, saying directly: “It is true that we have
vaginas and breasts, hut we are walking alone
together because ir pleases us to and that is
our right. We have selected to he alone, and
we intend to so rem ain.” T he men tm k (iff
like rabhits.
In 1921 Millav was commissioned to write
a play for rhe 50rh anniversary of Vassar. The
luimp and the Bell centered on rhe love
betw een two young women who, to make the
subject som ew hat less scandalous, became
stepsisters. It was tvpical of her to forge ahead
so boldly— and appropriately, actually,
because Vassar was, as she had written, a
hotbed of Sapphic intrigue.
Although Millay eventually married, it was
an open marriage to a hi man, and they for
some time enjoyed a three-way relationship
with another hi man. And she always had
admiring women in her life whom she bedded
whenever she wanted.
As one of th e first women to tour the
country regularly giving public readings, the
first with her own national radio program and
the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for
poetry, Millay was one of the most famous
women in the country during the 1930s. A nd
undoubtedly the most liberated. She was liv
ing the life of a sexual revolutionary decades
ahead of her time, blazing a trail for future
generations.
By Millays last decade, she was caught
under the twin spells of alcohol and morphine.
Although knowing all of the sordid details of
the poet’s life is not a requisite for appreciating
her writing, it does certainly place it in a vastly
different light, helping us value even more the
remarkable body of work she created under
sometimes harrowing circumstances. JT1