"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay" by Poet, playwright, and translator Daniel Mark Epstein is the story of the Edna, who grew up in poverty in Camden, Maine, but was gifted with an extraordinary talent for words, music, and drama. What she also possessed was an insatiable desire to be loved. By the time she reached twenty, she was already getting famous for her poetry; and by the time she was thirty, she was adored by readers all over the planet.
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.
Edna was widely considered to be the most seductive woman of her times. Not only could men not resist her, many women are also known to have fell under her spell.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows 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.
Using letters, diaries, and journals of the poet and her lovers that have only recently become available, Daniel Mark Epstein has compiled the story of the life dedicated to art and love - the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
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