Madame Lelica

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Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950) è stato a lungo considerato come una delle maggiori del xx secolo la figura del genere di poesia. Ecco una selezione di 12 poesie di Edna St. Vincent Millay da alcune delle sue collezioni precedenti.

Edna si è immersa in grandi opere letterarie fin dalla tenera età. Ha letto Shakespeare, Keats, Longfellow, Shelley e Wordsworth., All’età di sedici anni ha compilato una dozzina di poesie in un quaderno e li ha presentati a sua madre come ” Opere poetiche di Vincent Millay.

Nel 1912, incoraggiata da sua madre, Edna, allora 19enne, inviò la sua poesia, “Renascence” a The Lyric Year, una rivista che organizzava un concorso di poesia annuale e pubblicava le voci vincenti. Anche se lei non ha vinto, la poesia le ha guadagnato una grande quantità di attenzione e ha lanciato la sua carriera di scrittore.,

Le poesie incluse questo annuncio:

• Taverna
• Dolore
• le Ceneri di Vita
• Primo Fico
• Ebb
• Canzone di un Secondo aprile
• Quello che le Labbra le Mie Labbra Hanno Baciato
• Partenza
• Il Fidanzamento
• il Canto Senza Musica
• l’Amore Non è Tutto
• La Ballata dell’Arpa-Tessitore

Un Paio di Fichi dai Cardi (1921), Millay prima importante raccolta, esplorato sessualità femminile, tra gli altri temi. Second April (anche 1921) si occupava di crepacuore, natura e morte.,

Nel 1923, il quarto volume di poesie di Edna, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver, vinse il premio Pulitzer per la poesia. Fu la prima donna a vincere un Pulitzer e solo la seconda persona a ricevere il premio per la poesia.

Edna ha raggiunto lo status di superstar, qualcosa che era — ed è ancora — raro per un poeta. Per tutto il 1920, ha recitato a entusiasta, sold-out folle durante i suoi numerosi tour di lettura in patria e all’estero., Holly Peppe, il suo esecutore letterario, ha incapsulato Millay:

“Per i giovani disillusi del dopoguerra che la consideravano la loro portavoce per i diritti delle donne e l’uguaglianza sociale, Millay rappresentava lo spirito ribelle della loro generazione.

Infatti, sebbene preferisse forme poetiche tradizionali come testi e sonetti, ha coraggiosamente invertito i ruoli di genere convenzionali nella poesia, potenziando l’amante femminile invece del corteggiatore maschile, e ha stabilito un nuovo, scioccante precedente riconoscendo la sessualità femminile come soggetto letterario praticabile.,”

Forse ha bruciato la sua candela ad entrambe le estremità, come descritto in una delle sue poesie più famose, “First Fig” (che è inclusa in questo post) — poiché non ha vissuto a lungo oltre i cinquant’anni.

Maggiori informazioni sulla poesia di Edna St. Vincent Millay

• American Poems(dozzine di voci)
• La poesia di Edna St. Vincent Millay è stata eclissata dalla sua vita personale — cambiamola
• Poetry Foundation

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Scopri di più su Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Tavern

I'll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill's crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May set them down and rest.
There shall be plates a-plenty,
And mugs to melt the chill
Of all the grey-eyed people
Who happen up the hill.
There sound will sleep the traveller,
And dream his journey's end,
But I will rouse at midnight
The falling fire to tend.
Aye, 'tis a curious fancy—
But all the good I know
Was taught me out of two grey eyes
A long time ago.
. . . . . . . . . .

Sorrow

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,—
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.
People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.
. . . . . . . . . .

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, — and would that night were here!
But ah! — to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! — with twilight near!
Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, —
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.
Love has gone and left me, — and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, —
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house.

. . . . . . . . . .

Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay
. . . . . . . . . . .,86420″>

che Cosa Labbra le Mie Labbra Hanno Baciato

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
. . . . . . . . . .

Partenza

It's little I care what path I take,
And where it leads it's little I care,
But out of this house, lest my heart break,
I must go, and off somewhere!
It's little I know what's in my heart,
What's in my mind it's little I know,
But there's that in me must up and start,
And it's little I care where my feet go!
I wish I could walk for a day and a night,
And find me at dawn in a desolate place,
With never the rut of a road in sight,
Or the roof of a house, or the eyes of a face.
I wish I could walk till my blood should spout,
And drop me, never to stir again,
On a shore that is wide, for the tide is out,
And the weedy rocks are bare to the rain.
But dump or dock, where the path I take
Brings up, it's little enough I care,
And it's little I'd mind the fuss they'll make,
Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere.
"Is something the matter, dear," she said,
"That you sit at your work so silently?"
"No, mother, no—'twas a knot in my thread.
There goes the kettle—I'll make the tea."
. . . . . . . . . .

Il Fidanzamento

Oh, come, my lad, or go, my lad,
And love me if you like!
I hardly hear the door shut
Or the knocker strike.
Oh, bring me gifts or beg me gifts,
And wed me if you will!
I'd make a man a good wife,
Sensible and still.
And why should I be cold, my lad,
And why should you repine,
Because I love a dark head
That never will be mine?
I might as well be easing you
As lie alone in bed
And waste the night in wanting
A cruel dark head!
You might as well be calling yours
What never will be his,
And one of us be happy;
There's few enough as is.
. . . . . . . . . .

il Canto Senza Musica

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
. . . . . . . . . .

L’amore Non è Tutto

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
. . . . . . . . . .

La Ballata dell’Arpa-Tessitore

"Son,” said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
"You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.
"There’s nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with
Nor thread to take stitches.
"There’s nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman’s head
Nobody will buy,”
And she began to cry.
That was in the early fall.
When came the late fall,
"Son,” she said, "the sight of you
Makes your mother’s blood crawl,—
"Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you’ll get a jacket from
God above knows.
"It’s lucky for me, lad,
Your daddy’s in the ground,
And can’t see the way I let
His son go around!”
And she made a queer sound.
That was in the late fall.
When the winter came,
I’d not a pair of breeches
Nor a shirt to my name.
I couldn’t go to school,
Or out of doors to play.
And all the other little boys
Passed our way.
"Son,” said my mother,
"Come, climb into my lap,
And I’ll chafe your little bones
While you take a nap.”
And, oh, but we were silly
For half an hour or more,
Me with my long legs
Dragging on the floor,
A-rock-rock-rocking
To a mother-goose rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy
For half an hour’s time!
But there was I, a great boy,
And what would folks say
To hear my mother singing me
To sleep all day,
In such a daft way?
Men say the winter
Was bad that year;
Fuel was scarce,
And food was dear.
A wind with a wolf’s head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat on the floor.
All that was left us
Was a chair we couldn’t break,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Nobody would take,
For song or pity’s sake.
The night before Christmas
I cried with the cold,
I cried myself to sleep
Like a two-year-old.
And in the deep night
I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me
With love in her eyes.
I saw my mother sitting
On the one good chair,
A light falling on her
From I couldn’t tell where,
Looking nineteen,
And not a day older,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Leaned against her shoulder.
Her thin fingers, moving
In the thin, tall strings,
Were weav-weav-weaving
Wonderful things.
Many bright threads,
From where I couldn’t see,
Were running through the harp-strings
Rapidly,
And gold threads whistling
Through my mother’s hand.
I saw the web grow,
And the pattern expand.
She wove a child’s jacket,
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one.
She wove a red cloak
So regal to see,
"She’s made it for a king’s son,”
I said, "and not for me.”
But I knew it was for me.
She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
And a little cocked hat.
She wove a pair of mittens,
She wove a little blouse,
She wove all night
In the still, cold house.
She sang as she worked,
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,
And the thread never broke.
And when I awoke,—
There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteen
And not a day older,
A smile about her lips,
And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
Frozen dead.
And piled up beside her
And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king’s son,
Just my size. 

Categorie: Poesia

1. il Mio preferito di suo è “il tempo non portare sollievo: tutti hanno mentito” = ogni volta che la leggo fine in lacrime – che cos’è un meraviglioso poeta.,

   • Anche il mio.

2. Era molto prima del suo tempo, ma la Ballata del Tessitore di arpa, mi ha portato le lacrime agli occhi. Così vero, della prima America, ma anche oggi!!! Lei è stato raramente menzionato quando ho frequentato la scuola, a laurearsi 1958. Mi mancavano quelle belle storie affascinanti. Potranno godere di loro ora. Ringraziamento. Ho visto la sua storia nel Pittsburgh Post_Gazette, questa domenica Pg. D-7. Pittsburgh PA

3. Grazie mille per aver scritto questo-sarò sempre adorare e amare Vincent!,

   • Grazie, Nancy — Vorrei che fosse più ampiamente letta e discussa di lei. Sicuramente ancora una figura iconica, e così in anticipo sui tempi.