what to say

about Edna. Man. She's meant so much to me in my life. Of course, she preferred to go by Vincent. Yes, I'm talking about Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet and liver-of-life extraordinaire. I don't go in for biographies much, well, actually, pretty much ever – but boy oh boy, when I was seventeen did I eat up Nancy Milford's 500-plus page Savage Beauty.

There's a lot in Vincent that I think appeals to teenage Margarets everywhere:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

for one, and:

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

for another. Gimme that lustful bohemian undefined sexuality any day. Did I mention that she was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry?