#fatal interview

[derangedrhythms]

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fatal Interview: from 'Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane...'

[rustbeltjessie]

Another thing I made on May 1st: my own copy of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Fatal Interview. See, I’m working on a new project, which is, much like Fatal Interview, a sonnet sequence inspired by a love affair. I decided I needed a copy of the book to have near me while I work on it. I looked for used copies online; found some that weren’t too expensive but were still a greater expense than I can justify right now. Then I thought I’d just have to content myself with the .pdf, which, ugh. Then I remembered that I’ve got some amateur book-binding skills, so I printed out the book and made my own cover for it and stitched it all together with twine, and honestly this makes it even more special than if I’d purchased a copy.

(May 1, 2023)

[arsanimarum]

from fatal interview, c. 1931 // Edna St. Vincent Millay

[megairea]

This love, this longing, this oblivious thing,

Edna St. Vincent Millay, from Sonnet LXXII (“This beast that rends me”); Fatal Interview: Sonnets, 1931

[patrickbrianmooney]

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fil the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fracture bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It may well be. I do not think I would.

    —Edna St. Vincent Millay, sonnet XXX in Fatal Interview (1931)

[lizardgoats]

I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields, In converse with sweet women long since dead; And out of blossoms which that meadow yields I wove a garland for your living head.

Sonnet XVI in Fatal Interview, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

[derangedrhythms]

Night is my sister,

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fatal Interview: from 'Night is my sister, and how deep in love...'

[derangedrhythms]

She loves you not; she never heard of love. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fatal Interview; from ‘Think not, nor for a moment let your mind’