Edna St. Vincent Millay - "Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended"
One of my all time favorite poets is Edna St. Vincent Millay. Not only was she a badass Pulitzer Prize laureate who looked undeniably sexy in a pair of high-waisted trousers, she was also a prominent feminist and social activist who lived in Greenwich Village at the height of its fashionable Bohemian era. She was famous for her numerous short-lived affairs with people of all genders, something she was incredibly and quite bravely open about given the time period (Millay lived from 1892 to 1950). Her work inspired another of America's greatest female poets (and a fellow Pulitzer winner), Mary Oliver, who befriended Millay's sister and even lived in Millay's house for a while following her death.
Nancy Milford, the author of Millay's biography, wrote, "Millay was the first American figure to rival the personal adulation, frenzy even, of Byron, where the poet in his person was the romantic ideal. It was his life as much as his work that shocked and delighted his audiences. Edna Millay was the only American woman to draw such crowds to her. Her performing self made people feel they had seen the muse alive and just within reach."
What I love most about Millay is how she is able to marry her technical genius when it comes to structure with modern concepts and imagery. She's recognized as one of the best sonnet writers of the 20th century, with an ability to make a complicated form look effortless. Her sonnets are often playful, sometimes with an almost flirtatious and teasing quality (for example, "Oh think not I am faithful to a vow"). Some are even pretty dirty ("Love, though for this you riddle me with darts").
But the one that I'd like to showcase this month is a sonnet that I feel clearly illustrates Millay's prowess at combining an old form with new ideas:
Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended
Assuming you're writing in the English language, an English sonnet is probably the easiest to achieve (although none of them are particularly easy). Millay of course had to go for something more challenging here, in which she's written the Italian style (aka a "Petrarchan sonnet"). This type usually employs the following rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA for the first stanza of eight lines (an octave) and CDCDCD for the second stanza of six (a sestet). That means that in terms of rhyming sounds, you can only use four for the entire poem, significantly limiting your word choice. Despite this challenge the rhyming words fit the pattern with lyrical ease. Another aspect of Millay's poem which is impressive is her ability to employ feminine endings. Although sonnets are generally written in iambic pentameter which has ten syllables to a line, Millay has several lines with an additional eleventh syllable. This final unstressed syllable is known as a feminine ending, a common feature of Italian poetry.
One more thing I love about the structure of this poem is Millay's use of stops (known as caesura). These are elements of punctuation, such as periods and commas, that force you to pause when reading a poem. For example, take these two lines:
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
The line ending in recall is the first in the sonnet that does not end in a comma, which means that as you read it you flow straight into the second line without interruption, until you hit the comma following the word "you" which is placed about halfway through that line. At the comma we are left hanging for just a moment before the final part is delivered. This, in my opinion, strengthens the impact of the ending words. Note that she uses this pattern in two places in the sonnet: once right before the volta as shown above, and again in the final two lines of the poem as you can see below.
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.
Many of the lines in the first part of the poem describe a single image or sensory detail, such as ashes falling onto the floor or the sound of music. The commas that force us to pause at the end of each of these first six lines are particularly effective because they present each image one at a time, almost like a series of photographs in a slideshow.
Finally, moving on from the structure, I adore the modern feel of this poem. Sonnets are such an old form (dating back to before the time of Shakespeare) and yet Millay has pulled it right into the "jazzing" world of the 20th century. The scene this sonnet paints for us feels like it's been taken straight out of a film noir. I can see our hero sitting back, smoking in their dimly lit New York apartment, allowing themselves just a minute or two to fondly remember a lover while someone like Count Basie plays in the background. And as soon as that cigarette burns out - farewell, adieu! - the memory has ended. Time for our cool and unattainable hero to move on to the next lucky lady. Or gent. Or maybe that dishy non-binary pianist down at the local dive bar they've had their eye on lately. Whatever the case may be.
For more Edna St. Vincent Millay, check out the links below:
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