The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, Edna St. Vincent Millay published her first book in 1917 — the year she graduated Vassar College and moved to Greenwich Village, just as the United States entry into World War I began. For the next 40 years, Millay was an integral part of the Village scene, gaining renown for her formal rigor in the "Objectivist" school and for the clarity and passion of her ideas. While World War II tested Millay's pacifism, she never regretted writing the poem below, which you will hear recited at some Memorial Day observances this weekend.
To read her poem, "Conscientious Objector", please join us at Women's Voices For Change.
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I love her. Reading her biography as a young teen has a really positive effect on me. She explored her sexuality, taught her sister how to masturbate, had a self-induced natural abortion, as was just an all around powerful female figure throughout my difficult years.
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand; come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!