Edna St. Vincent Millay.

At age seven, her parents separated, and she and her sisters were raised by their mother Cora Buzzell, who encouraged their literary, musical, and dramatic leanings. Insisting on being called Vincent, she entered writing contests under that name. In 1912, her poem Renascence won fourth place in a poetry contest, securing her a scholarship to Vassar College. Before Vassar, she attended Camden Hills Regional High School.

Millay published her first book of poetry in 1917 to good reviews. Her 1922 volume A Few Figs from Thistles sparked controversy with its feminist themes. In 1923, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Ballad of the Harp Weaver and other works. She later wrote several plays and an opera libretto. During the 1930s, she published sonnets that became exemplars of the form. In later years, she applied her art to the Allied war effort.

Millay was an acknowledged bisexual, and her affections for women are evident in her poems and plays. She married Eugen Boissevain in 1923, who managed her career and supported her. Their marriage was open, and she carried on several affairs, most notably with English actress Edith Wynne Matthison. She had two sisters, Kathleen and Norma Millay. A heavy smoker, she died of heart failure in 1950 at her upstate New York farmhouse, Steepletop.

Millay’s home, Steepletop, is now a National Historic Landmark. She won the Robert Frost Medal and Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets. She is remembered as the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and for her enduring sonnets that infused conventional forms with contemporary spirit. Her work inspired subsequent generations of poets and feminists.