The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay

An indispensable collection of the groundbreaking poet’s most masterful and innovative work, celebrating a bold early voice of female liberation, independence, and queer sexuality—featuring a new introduction by poet Olivia Gatwood, author of Life of the Party

Edna St. Vincent Millay defined a generation as one of the most critically acclaimed poets of the Modernist era. Her work pushed boundaries within the literary canon for its lyrical expression of female embodiment and progressive feminist politics, and she was honored as only the third woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay demonstrates Millay’s legacy and influence on contemporary poetry. Sometimes satirical, often sharp, and always striking, the poems in this collection span Millay’s remarkable career, from the success of Renascence and Other Poems to the sting of A Few Figs from Thistles, and Second April, as well as “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver” and eight sonnets from the early twenties. Millay’s incandescent poetry continues to inspire today as broadly and deeply as during her lifetime.

The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.