My Favorite Poet's Birthday

Hi, friends! I was just stumbling through social media today, and I realized that today is one of my favorite poets’s birthday.

Ever since I first read her work in high school, Edna St. Vincent Millay has been a huge influence on me. Her sonnets were such a welcome introduction to my literary world, allowing me to fall in love with the form and to realize its potential as a contemporary form.

She exists in this time of being old enough that she’s considered a classic, but her work isn’t so very different and completely foreign, like, say, Shakespeare or Poe.

Here’s a recording of her reading one of her most famous poems, Love Is Not All:

I have to say that, as a performer, I absolutely love her stage voice! It’s so rich and rolling and resonant and absolutely lovely.

Here’s my favorite poem of hers—not read by her, unfortunately, but by actress Blythe Danner:

Take today to check out some of Millay’s poems—and maybe, like me, you’ll find a new favorite.