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POETRY FRIDAY: Read History


These days Edna St. Vincent Millay goes unheralded, an oft-overlooked poet of the early 20th century despite having been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923. And though Millay's poetic scope spans a variety of styles, including forays into the free verse trend of her era, I always think of her as a master of the contemporary sonnet. [And sonnets, truly, are the epitome of the power of poetry - intense emotion compressed into 14 lines, 140 syllables, little jewels of beauty, tiny explosions of reality.] 

What I like most about Millay's sonnets is that she strips away the romanticized notion that we might associate with the classic sonneteers - she's not interested in presenting us with love sonnets, immortalizing lovers with glinting eyes. No, Millay's sonnets - certainly beautiful and definitely intricate and syntactically complex - are aiming for something more didactic, raw, and profound.

"Read History" is a command, a reflection, an admonition, a call to action, and a resignation - all at the same time. The speaker urges us to read, to learn, to examine, to uproot our conflicts. But the speaker also knows the truth about human nature: we disinfect, but we do not probe; we enjoy loftiness, but don't have time to make our height sublime. And so the fouling cycle repeats itself.

Millay's observations are, I'm sure, borne from the specificities of the events of the world around her in the early 20th century, but for me, they resonate within the context of our current crisis-addled moment in history. Will this be the moment that we finally give our troubles something more than a polish? Can this be the moment that we take the time to grapple with the errors of our history? Isn't it pretty to think so?

Read History
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1923)

Read history: so learn your place in Time
And go to sleep: all this was done before;
We do it better, fouling every shore;
We disinfect, we do not probe, the crime.
Our engines plunge into the seas, they climb
Above our atmosphere: We grow not more
Profound as we approach the ocean's floor;
Our flight is lofty; it is not sublime.
Yet long ago this Earth by struggling men
Was scuffed, was scraped by mouths that bubbled mud;
And will be so again, and yet again;
Until we trace our poison to its bud
And root, and there uproot it: until then
Earth will be warmed each winter by man's blood.
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