Edna St. Vincent Millay
(1892-1950)

woman, poet, and Pulitzer Prize winner (from 1923)

Died aged c. 58

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of her prose and hackwork verse under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd. Millay won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her poem "Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"; she was the first woman and second person to win the award. In 1943, Millay was the sixth person and the second woman to be awarded the Frost Medal for her lifetime contribution to American poetry. Millay was highly regarded during much of her lifetime, with the prominent literary critic Edmund Wilson calling her "one of the only poets writing in English in our time who have attained to anything like the stature of great literary figures.'' By the 1930s, her critical reputation began to decline, as modernist critics dismissed her works for its use of traditional poetic forms and subject matter, in contrast to modernism's exhortation to "make it new." However, the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1960s and 1970s revived an interest in Millay's works.

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Commemorated on 2 plaques

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892-1950 The irreverent poet, who wrote "my candle burns at both ends" lived here in 1923-24 at the time she wrote the "Ballad of the Harp-Weaver," for which she won a Pulitzer Prize.

75 1/2 Bedford Street, New York, NY 10014, New York, NY, United States where they lived

38 Commerce Street. In 1924 Edna St. Vincent Millay and a group of theatre artists converted a box factory into what would become The Cherry Lane Theatre. Through the years, it has become a showcase for the early works of Edward Albee, Lanford Wilson, Harold Pinter, and Sam Shepard, and continues to nurture emerging artists. Acclaimed actress Kim Hunter 1922-2002, lived above this theatre with her playwright husband Robert Emmett from 1954 until her death. Best known for creating the role of "Stella" in the Broadway and film version of "A Streetcar Named Desire" Kim's Academy Award-winning career spanned over 50 years of stage, screen, and television. She was a lifetime member of the BBC Block Association and a beloved citizen of Greenwich Village.

38 Commerce Street, New York, NY, United States where they performed (1924)