Edna St. Vincent Millay

     After reading the poems written by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and watching the discussion lead by

Mr. Searles, I started to appreciate the poet's writing style. It did not occur to me that she had such a

damaging life when her parents divorced and a father figure had disappeared. I completely

disregarded the fact that her father not being any help to her family, was probably the cause to her

voicing herself. I found it particularly interesting the way she portrayed her sexuality through her

poems. I had not realized that the context was explicitly about her sex life and in general, about love

and sex. Particularly because she came out as bisexual, which was not favored back then. In Edna's

sonnet "Love Is Not Love" I assumed that the main point was that love is not a necessity to live. But,

in the discussion with Mr. Searles, it became apparent that the poem was about love being a

necessity.  She expresses the idea of how important love is in our lives. This poem is something we

can live by today because there is still just as much hatred, and conflict as before WWI.

     It is influential to hear that during a time when women were inferior to men, Edna St. Vincent

Millay was still able to express herself so immensely through writing. It is especially empowering

that she was able to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. That has a lot to say about where we are today

because what was once a very rare thing now is completely conventional. Nowadays, I think it's still

hard for some people to accept themselves in society. I think there is a lot of distress around some

people when they are nervous about how people think of them. I could only imagine that back during

Edna's time, that it was even more difficult to be able to express yourself without fear of judgement.