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Many times I have read Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Poems Selected for Young People," c 1951. Her sister Norma got this collection published; Vincent had passed in 1950. (Yes, Vincent is the name she used.) One of my favorite poems is the poem about train rides. The title is "Travel," and you can also find it online at poets.org. Here are the last two lines of the 12-line poem:
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.
I felt like I was reading materials for a research paper. First I bought the book "A Girl Called Vincent: The Life of Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay," author Krystyna Poray Goddu, c 2016. As I was reading this book, The New Yorker, May 16, 2022, came in the mail, and there's an article by Maggie Doherty about Vincent.
I had already found an article about trains in the March 2022 BBC Music Magazine. It doesn't mention Vincent, but it taught me a lot about how musicians have written music influenced by their interest in trains. Antonin Dvořák was often at the railroad station in Prague talking with engineers about locomotives. My favorite photograph is of the musician John Cage on a train in 1978. Often during this time period, "Passengers were greeted at the station by bands and dancers, and cassette recorders played unexpected sounds in random corners (BBC Music Magazine, p. 41). Edna St. Vincent Millay did ride trains a lot in the early 1900s. At least once she was in Minneapolis and gave a reading -- in 1924. "In Minneapolis, where she gave two readings, the hall for the second reading had to be changed three times to accommodate the crowd, reported the local newspaper" (Goddu, p. 135).
Now I'll use chronology to tell about her life. She was the oldest of three sisters. Her mother, separated from their father, worked as a nurse for many people. Usually she was miles away from her daughters, and they learned to take care of themselves. Mostly they lived in Camden, Maine, when they were young.
Vincent's poem "Forest Trees" was published in the magazine St. Nicholas in October, 1906, when she was 14 years old. Then in 1907 she was in a play at the Camden Opera House. At her high school graduation June 16, 1909, Vincent read a poem she wrote. Soon she was in a piano recital and played Dvořák's "Humoresque." In 1912 she enters her poem "Renaissance" in a poetry contest. Many people remember reading this 214-line poem, perhaps when they were in junior high or high school. The last verse has these lines:
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
After graduation from high school, Vincent eventually decides to attend college --first Barnard College, and then Vassar. Here she continued to write poems, and she starred in seven plays. After her June 12, 1917, graduation, she began to live in New York, and soon her sister Norma and their mother come to live with her. Vincent now has several books of poems published, including "Renaissance and Other Poems," "A Few Figs from Thistles," and "Second April."
She travels on the ship Rochambeau to head for Europe, and lives in many places in Europe. Her mother eventually comes to be with her.
The early 1920s bring her good and tough life adventures. She meets Eugen Boissevain, and they marry on July 18, 1923. They first live in Greenwich Village, but eventually move to a house in New York they call Steepletop. That year she wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the first woman to win this prize. But it is now that she begins to have stomach problems that she is treated for the rest of her life.
In 1924 she is in a poetry reading with Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg
In December 1932 she is on the radio reading her poetry for eight weeks. This "was a milestone in American radio broadcasting" (p. 152).
Her 1940s book, "Make Bright the Arrows" is antiwar. Her last poetry reading was at Carnegie Hall in January 1941.
Eugen passes in August 1949, and Vincent lives by herself at Steepletop. She was alone during the holidays in December. In the spring she sees her first dandelion and remembers how Eugen liked seeing the first dandelion. She weeps.
Edna St. Vincent Millay passes Oct. 19, 1950.
Her sister Norma and her husband Charles lived at Steepletop until they passed. You can find out more about Steepletop if you look online www.millay.org.
I'm now reading the book I checked out from Marshall-Lyon County Library: "Poetry Speaks who I am," Editor Elise Paschen, c 2010. I'm surprised Vincent isn't in the book, but her friend Sara Teasdale is. In the back of the book there's a CD of some of the poets in the book reading their poems. Several of Vincent's books are available from the Plum Creek Library System, marshalllyonlibrary.org.