I have a Collected edition of Millay's poems, and I was wondering whether to read the whole thing or not, but the sonnets are collected separately. The eight sonnets from the anthology were uniformly great. Millay's reputation as one of the best sonneteers is well earned. Of the poems I hadn't read before, The Singing Woman From the Wood's Edge and some of the sonnets were the ones that I really liked from it. I recognized a lot of them from the selected edition. There are some shorter (4 lines or so) poems in A Few Figs From Thistles that I didn't really care for, but the others were generally very clever and well structured. Thankfully, I enjoyed the rest much more. But overall, the tone of it didn't work for me. It struck me as saccharine, though the ending did hit hard the first couple times I read it. They are very good, but I have to work to get into the right headspace for them.īallad of the Harp Weaver was actually my least favorite of the poems in this batch. I find that I have to be in the right mood for her poems, as I tend to like poetry in a sublime or prophetic mode, and these are primarily love lyrics. Her first major poem, Renascence (and the title poem of her first collection) will probably never work for me, but in context I understood it better. Getting the context for her life made me enjoy this pass more. Last year, though, I reread that collection concurrently with the excellent biography Savage Beauty. I read a selected poems collection a few years back and liked it well enough, but it wasn't entirely to my taste. Looking at the list, I think this will be the only time that happens. It took a little digging just to identify what she actually won for. And the 1922 anthology American Poetry: A Miscellany had eight of her sonnets included. The collection A Few Figs From Thistles was published in 1920. The single poem, Ballad of the Harp Weaver was published in 1922, and later became the title poem of a collections a couple years later. Sure there are multiple collected editions, but this one is strange. As far as I can tell this is the only time they gave the Pulitzer to such a mix of works by one author.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |