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Diane’s Blue Forum 👩‍💻's avatar

Thanks for posting one of my favorite poets from my youth. I’d forgotten how much I loved her poetry until you posted this. Her poems are balm to weary souls. I taught “Renascence” which is so uplifting.

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Weston Parker's avatar

Although the world has changed a great deal, her sentiments feel as though she wrote them next to me where I sit on an island in Maine. A one hundred year old poem, still as fresh as the day it was written.

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Edward Storm's avatar

ANOTHER GREAT FIND FROM THE BOYS AND GIRLS AT OUTLAW!

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Kurt Rostek aka Paintguy's avatar

I miss the sea, it calms my mind.

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Patris's avatar

Apart.always. Something I would experience and value, but she embraced a lifetime of it.

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Jennifer Flagg's avatar

I thank you as well. A favorite poem of mine is her "Recuerdo" which starts:

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14404/recuerdo

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man of aran's avatar

Great poem. Speaks to many.

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Maha's avatar

I too am happy by the sea. I’m sadly landlocked now.

An interesting aside:

At 17 Mary Oliver visited the home of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, in Austerlitz, New York, where she then formed a friendship with the late poet's sister Norma. Oliver and Norma spent the next six to seven years at the estate organizing Edna St. Vincent Millay's papers. (Oliver too became a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize.)

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Ken Paul Rosenthal's avatar

This is one of those poems where I feel myself falling in love with the author by way of the words--and most likely so were we to meet in person. The line, "stricken with noise, confused with light" cuts to my marrow. Years ago, I wrote the following poem and dedicated it to Edna, having cribbed a few famous lines of hers in the final stanza: https://www.kenpaulrosenthal.com/writings/where-icarus-flew/

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Adita del Rosario's avatar

Wonderful poem. Its rolling rhythm brought me right to the ocean's edge, listening to the surf, tasting its salt.

Lovely.

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Rodrigo Lopez's avatar

💖🙏

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T. D. Wolf's avatar

Every line transmits its own distinctly strong image. She was a wonder.

“the wrecked and rotting hulls”

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Celeste Briefs's avatar

It's about time I added Edna St. Vincent Millay to my poetry collection!

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David Picariello's avatar

Blessings for Edna's work to be resurrected. Her use of alliteration is nonpareils. Dave P

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Julie Dee's avatar

I feel the same about water. Am so drawn.

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