The Lyric Year’s 1912 poetry competition

 When the results of The Lyric Year’s 1912 poetry competition were announced, readers were indignant, most declaring that the poem that was awarded fourth place was by far the best. The winning poet agreed with that assessment and the second-place poet even sent his prize money back. The poem that was awarded fourth place that year was “Renascence,” by 20-year-old Edna St. Vincent Millay, and its publication marked the beginning of an extraordinary career.

By the 1920’s, Edna was a poetic rock star. Her volumes were best-sellers and she read her poems to packed houses. She achieved a level of fame and success that poets rarely attain.

Raised by a wildly Bohemian mother, Edna was herself a radical libertine, which contributed significantly to the public’s fascination with her. A petite and alluring redhead, Edna unabashedly celebrated female sexuality (at a time when doing so was scandalous) and she had unhidden, often brief, intimate relationships with many men and women.

She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1923. Twenty years later she was awarded the Robert Frost medal for lifetime achievement in American poetry, although by then her poems had fallen out of critical favor, though still loved by the public.

Sadly, there was a dark side to Edna’s life. Despite her hefty advances and string of best-sellers, she spent more than she earned. That problem was solved when she married a wealthy man, with whom she had a loving (albeit sexually open) relationship. The more serious problem was one she never conquered: dependency on alcohol and narcotics throughout her adult life. After her husband died in 1949, Edna was hospitalized several times for alcohol- and morphine-related nervous breakdowns. The following year, while suffering from cirrhosis of the liver and while heavily intoxicated, she fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck.

Edna St. Vincent Millay died at age 58, on October 19, 1950, seventy three years ago today. She had burned her candle at both ends.

The Penitent

I had a little Sorrow,

Born of a little Sin,

I found a room all damp with gloom

And shut us all within;

And, "Little Sorrow, weep," said I,

"And, Little Sin, pray God to die,

And I upon the floor will lie

And think how bad I've been!"

Alas for pious planning —

It mattered not a whit!

As far as gloom went in that room,

The lamp might have been lit!

My Little Sorrow would not weep,

My Little Sin would go to sleep —

To save my soul I could not keep

My graceless mind on it!

So up I got in anger,

And took a book I had,

And put a ribbon on my hair

To please a passing lad.

And, "One thing there's no getting by —

I've been a wicked girl," said I;

"But if I can't be sorry, why,

I might as well be glad!"

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