Today’s Poem: Grown-Up
A thought for February 22, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s birthday
The widely published, wildly inventive poet Aaron Poochigian recently remarked that he had a contrary-to-received-wisdom sense that the clever, acidic wit Dorothy Parker wrote better poetry than her contemporary, the sappy Edna St. Vincent Millay. Until, that is, he sat himself down and actually read Millay. So here at
we asked him to write up a quick take on his new appreciation for Millay.Aaron Poochigian writes:
When listening to the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950), I find myself hearing two distinct voices, two personae. The first is the passionate romantic Millay of exclamation points and, at times, Victorian diction. This strain started early: She published “The Land of Romance” as a fifteen-year-old prodigy. The second is the cynical and often ironic Millay of rapier wit and contemporary diction. (This persona I call “Snarky New Yorker” Millay.) She was fully aware of these opposing voices inside her and at times played them off each other.
Her four-line epigram “Grown-up” (written in her mid to late twenties) front-loads the grand passions as a foil to climactic humdrum domesticity. The undercutting couldn’t be sharper. In the opening couplet, prayers are not “said” but “uttered,” and the speaker didn’t “cry.” She “sobbed.” These dramatic (or intentionally melodramatic) effusions then lead to “cursed,” which could go lofty and mean “execrated” or low and mean plain ol’ “cussing.” With “kicked the stairs,” the hyper-emotional romantic comes down to a child having a tantrum.
The voice of the second couplet then asks, with indignation, what good all those big emotions, and the lofty ambitions behind them, were — since they have led merely to a settled, repetitive, stay-at-home existence. The plate in her simile, “domestic as a plate,” given the daily washing, drying and reuse of it, perfectly evokes quotidian, household routine. Supercharged with subjectivity in the first couplet, the speaker becomes, through the comparison, an object in the second one. The opening persona would likely have felt compelled to stay up until all hours loudly emoting; the closing persona minds the clock and is perhaps even eager to go to bed.
Both extremes — grandiosity and monotony — are mocked, and we are left with a human being trying to find, like many of us, a workable balance between excitement and routine. What amazes me is that Millay was so fully aware of this defining negotiation in her twenties and so masterfully able to capture it with the voices she had in her. I didn’t know anything in my twenties. Millay was wise beyond her years.
Grown-up
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Was it for this I uttered prayers, And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, That now, domestic as a plate, I should retire at half-past eight?
Aaron Poochigian is a poet in New York City His most recent book, American Divine, is winner of the Richard Wilbur Award.
News
This past Saturday, in its third week of existence, Poems Ancient and Modern passed its first milestone, reaching five hundred subscribers. Please do share the newsletter with anyone you think might enjoy it and upgrade your subscription to paid. Like others before us, we depend on the kindness of strangers. And friends. And horsemen passing by.
 |
|
There is a Dorothy Parker group on Facebook which posts one of her poems now and then. I'd never read any of them before but after several decided that she was actually a pretty impressive poet. The tone might cause people to put her in the "light verse" box, but the matter is often serious, even dark. Which is a preface to saying that on the basis of this little gem Millay may be just as good in that line. I never was keen on "Renascence" .
I love Dorothy Parker, and I've never especially cared for Millay. I shall now have to read more of Millay's work -- this is brilliant! Thanks to Mr. Poochigian for his illumination of it, too.