National Poetry Day.
It’s fate, a sign, an elbow to the ribs: today is the day to finally put the fiery, multi-talented, irrepressible, bewitching Edna St. Vincent Millay on the map.
I mean just look at her!
She is the epitome of freed feminist rebel cool [baggy pants! smoking! practical shoes!]. Her poetry read much like the woman: brutally honest, political, unapologetic, emotionally vulnerable, beautiful. It won her a Pulitzer in 1923, the first woman to earn the honor.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –
It gives a lovely light!