Rating: 
Summary: Renascence woman
Review: "Renascence" has always been one of my favorite poems. Did you know Millay wrote it when she was only twenty? Milford includes other interesting little tidbits, as well as a detailed analysis of the woman who burned her candle at both ends. Yes, she died young, a drug addict and an alcoholic. Milford also includes her affairs with men and women, her problems with money, and her health problems, but I found the family relationships most interesting (Lots of pictures).
Millay's mother kicked her feckless husband out of the house, as did her grandmother (who was killed by a runaway horse)hers; all three of the Millay sisters were poets (Norma, the least ambitious of the three, writes a sonnet to rival Edna's best towards the end of the book). The youngest sister, Kathleen, was a sad case. Although she published a couple of novels and several books of poetry, she was jealous of Edna, hounded her for money, and did her level best to embarrass her in print. Millay's mother was the true inspiration for Edna. She read the girls poetry, wrote some of her own (publishing toward the end of her life). She validates B.F. Skinner's theory on parental inspiration and Edna gave her credit.
We also see the writer as performance artist. Edna wins a contest and is invited to read for literary societies in her home town, during which time she wins the support of a woman who sponsors her application to Vassar. According to Milford, Millay was an electrifying reader and became famous largely because of her book tours. She even did radio during a time when poetry was given its due.
Millay also wrote plays and even a book for an opera, all of which did well. She was a true Renascence woman.
Rating: 
Summary: Vincent - A Timid Woman She Ain't
Review: "Savage Beauty" is a very long and intimate biography of Edna St Vincent Millay. Reading this book can be both fascinating and boring at the same time. Milford's work is captivating because so many literary triumphs, sexual controversies (now I have your attention), and personal tragedies surrounding this modern day Saphho are chronicled by Millay herself and others in her circle. And for the same reason, this voluminous collection of homogenous biographical materials (i.e. excerpts from letters, interviews, diaries, and etc.) can be a very uninspiring read. Especially when the book is over 500 pages sans notations.
Rating:
Summary: Problematic biography
Review: A fair amount of original research, and a flow-chart mind that keeps together all the different men and women in Millay's life, but all to little avail, as Nancy Milford fails to persuade us that Millay is an interesting poet or person. She's an interesting cultural figure, I'll give her that, but the poetry has aged badly and after her marriage she never seems to do anything again but become addicted to morphine. Perhaps the controversial interludes in which an aged Norma Millay chats vampishly with Milford might have been a book all their own on the order of David Plante's "Difficult Women." Why on earth did this book take 30 years to write? There's a story underneath the story, I just don't know what it is. People who've been to the Millay Colony lately have been filled with gossip about the recent decisions of the Board of Trustees, Milford might have included this information as an epilogue. Again and again, and persuasively, Milford tells us that Millay was devastatingly attractive and magnetic. Couldn't there have been one picture that shows her looking good?
Rating:
Summary: A book as intoxicating as its subject
Review: A phenomenon when she burst onto the literary scene in the Twenties, Edna Millay, I believe, would herself be pleased with this phenomenal biography. I discovered Millay's poetry when I was in high school in Kansas in the Fifties, the Beatnik era, but in Kansas, I certainly knew no Beatniks. Millay became my muse, the poetic string connecting me to another world beyond the endless fields of corn and wheat. I visited her home in Greenwich Village, read all of her poetry, and can still quote long passages from memory.
Savage Beauty, a large book, does ample justice to the large personality of Millay, chronicling her life and lifestyle, both of which were 'unconventional,' in every sense of the word. Such was the impact of this genius, this 'force of nature,' that she willfully created her persona, in the process lifting herself and her dependent family out of poverty and onto the front pages.
The intensity of her poetic works is mirrored in the intensity with which she lived her life. Her short signature poem 'I burn my candle at both ends; it will not last the night. But ah my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light' became a slogan for an era - and even more, a definition of her own life, at the end of which she did, indeed, flame out in an excess of living.
Rating:
Summary: SAVAGELY BEAUTIFUL
Review: As an author with my debut novel in its initial release, I was fascinated with Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay. SAVAGE BEAUTY is a groundbreaking book about a groundbreaking woman. Ms. Milford tells the story of Ms. Millay's life from her youth as a most promising young writer to her unfortunate tragic death. Without pulling many punches, Ms. Milford presents Ms. Millay at the height of her fame--when she was queen of the American literary world. It discusses her nontraditional lifestyle and her freewheeling sexual adventures. SAVAGE BEAUTY is a great book--well written and accurate. Read it soon. You will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Hork's Hairy review
Review: Awsome, but trivial.
Intellectual, but simple.
Honest, but vague.
Thick, but thin.
Tasteful, but tasteless.
Rating:
Summary: The Pain, Desire and Celebrity of a Poet's Life
Review: Caution: This book deals with many personal habits that are often considered immoral, such as seducing married people of both sexes, abusing drugs and encouraging others to do so, and deliberately causing great emotional pain to people in love. In places, the book goes into details that will shock and upset many. The language is extremely explicit and coarse. Much of the book's content is highly inappropriate for young people. The title of this book is misleading. Ms. Millay actually displayed the qualities of a diamond, rough before cutting, able to slash painfully through flesh after being cut, the polished gem attracting the eye of all beholders in the light, a lasting beauty in its brilliance, and a coldness in its center even as it displays fire. Poetry was Ms. Millay's route out of a life she did not care for (nor would many people), but was a demanding mistress that took all of her strength to serve. To serve the muse, she put little investment in personal relationships, except to grasp the pleasures she continuously and indiscriminately lusted for. To provide for the fine lifestyle and clothes she preferred, the poetry had to grasp a mass audience -- something that poetry seldom does. With a flair for performance, and a preference for suggesting unbridled freedom, Ms. Millay drew enormous reading and lecture audiences even in the midst of the great Depression of the 1930s. The book's strength is its access to many private papers kept by Ms. Millay's surviving sister, Norma. The way these papers are used is also the book's major weakness. Ms. Millay, perhaps because of her pain, alcoholism and drug addiction in her later years, left behind many papers that one would assume she had not intended for the world to see published. Going through these papers as they are reported in Savage Beauty is like going through the dirty underwear of someone who wasn't very careful about being clean. I, for one, would have preferred not to know as much about the debauchery of her personal life. To me, a biography of a poet should have the poetry at the center. Many people live amoral and immoral lives. Seldom do we read biographies about them for that purpose. Ms. Milford partially succeeds in keeping poetry in the book. Many of Ms. Millay's poems are included in the book. There are also a few where you can see how the process of editing occurred. There are also poems written by Ms. Millay's poet friends that were directed at her. Occasionally, you will also find the comments that critics made. At other times, Ms. Milford connects a particular poem to a specific event or a person in Ms. Millay's life. What is missing is a thoughtful treatment of what's good and bad about the poetry. If you are like me, you will find it very uneven. Three soaring lines may be followed by two that don't work nearly as well. Throughout the book, the reader is told that Ms. Millay had a most remarkable voice, and that even she was surprised to hear a recording of her own reading. One would have thought that a CD would have been included with Ms. Millay reading her own work. If that were not possible, surely another poet could have been persuaded to read in a style similar to Ms. Millay's so that we could experience the full power of this most oral of all writing forms. I was disappointed that no such recording was made available with the book. Compared to the average nonfiction book, Savage Beauty is a long work. Much of that length is wasted on sharing unending details that make the same point. In some cases, long sections build up a point and then fail to finish it. For example, there's a lot about Ms. Millay's illnesses. You find out that she is having headaches and cannot see. Doctors are consulted, treatments are tried, and nothing is working. And then you don't hear anything about it again for 80 pages. Weird! In another place, one of Ms. Millay's sisters accuses Ms. Millay of stealing ideas from her, a most serious charge. Almost nothing is said about the truth or falseness of this. To me, the most interesting part of the book was how a poor girl with limited education from a small town in Maine essentially raised her two sisters alone (while her mother did nursing work away from home for weeks at a time) and became a world-famous poet. The background of her family and her first poetic success, for Renascence, (in a magazine's poetry contest, which her mother also entered) were quite remarkable. Ms. Milford asked Charlie Ellis, husband of Ms. Millay's sister, Norma, if there had been a trait that the three Millay sisters shared equally. "He answered in a flash: 'Yes. They were nasty, everlastingly.'" You will get that impression, too. Where many readers enjoy admiring the subjects of biographies, readers of this biography will probably mostly end up admiring the poetry rather than the poet. If that concerns you, perhaps you should read a book of Ms. Millay's poetry instead. The biography has another quirk. There is a running dialogue between the author and Ms. Norma Ellis throughout the book. Sometimes that dialogue draws out a point. Many other times, it just seems out of place and distracting. After you finish this book, think about what you would like to be remembered for. What criticisms could be made of how you live? How will you memory influence the lives of future generations? Seek to create beauty in your work, and in your relations with others!
Rating:
Summary: A Shooting Star
Review: Edna St. Vincent Millay was as famous and notorious in the 1920s as certain rock stars are today, though I would never have known her name had I not consciously chosen to explore American 20th century poetry. Nancy Milford offers a glimpse into the life of this shooting star based on exclusive access to the personal papers and letters under the care of Norma Millay, the poet's sister.
SAVAGE BEAUTY is a compelling biography of a colorful and intriguing poet, though it treads only lightly on the poetry side. This is not necessarily a problem since the character of Edna Millay is engaging enough. Notoriously promiscuous and a commanding presence in front of a crowd, Edna Millay also had a complicated private life beginning with her odd upbringing of near abandonment. Milford is able to brilliantly relate the personal story of the girl to the public persona she transformed into as the number one poet in America. Both public and private facets of her life are well covered in this volume.
For an enjoyable read and a glimpse into American life during the 1920s, I strongly recommend this excellent biography.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
Rating:
Summary: don't want it (or her) to end
Review: Edna St. Vincent Millay, long my favorite poet, lived a fascinating, wild and even shocking life. Learning the truth about her may disturb some people, but I was happy to learn the details, sordid and exemplary. Nancy Milford writes engagingly and her biography of "Vincent" became for this reader quite a page-turner. The author's use of correspondence to and from Millay, and about Millay, reveals the character of this jazz-age poet with a sense of immediacy and freshness. (In that sense, this biography has a great deal in common with David McCullough's current best-selling and very engaging biography of John Adams.)
Millay drank, was dependent on prescription pain killers, was promiscuous, and otherwise flouted the conventional morals of her time. She also wrote exquisite poetry and expressed not only beauty of spirit and self, but from time to time high-mindedness -- for example, in trying to evoke the national conscious during America's isolationist response to the rise of fascism in Europe. This biography is worth reading, as is Millay's poetry.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and informative
Review: Edna St. Vincent Millay, long my favorite poet, lived a fascinating, wild and even shocking life. Learning the truth about her may disturb some people, but I was happy to learn the details, sordid and exemplary. Nancy Milford writes engagingly and her biography of "Vincent" became for this reader quite a page-turner. The author's use of correspondence to and from Millay, and about Millay, reveals the character of this jazz-age poet with a sense of immediacy and freshness. (In that sense, this biography has a great deal in common with David McCullough's current best-selling and very engaging biography of John Adams.) Millay drank, was dependent on prescription pain killers, was promiscuous, and otherwise flouted the conventional morals of her time. She also wrote exquisite poetry and expressed not only beauty of spirit and self, but from time to time high-mindedness -- for example, in trying to evoke the national conscious during America's isolationist response to the rise of fascism in Europe. This biography is worth reading, as is Millay's poetry.
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