Millay is said to be the only English-speaking woman in the 20th century who made a living at writing and reading poetry. W. H. Auden, who attended Christ Church, Oxford, was the only man.
In honor of Millay's birthday, here is the text of Take Up the Song, produced in Rochester's GEVA Theater in 1998, on the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, a staged reading. An edited videotape of the play was completed in 2004, and the text is shown here. Both Milholland and Millay are characters in the play. https://bit.ly/3pEjR7O.
Link to reading of "What lips my lips have kissed" by Edna St. Vincent Millay — https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-february-22-2021/.
Eugen Boissevain was the youngest of the five sons of Charles Boissevain, editor of the Algemeen Handelsblad in Amsterdam. He and his two brothers Robert (Robbie) and Jan came to the United States before and after World War I. They made a lot of money shipping coffee from Java, which allowed Eugen to put up the money for the 600 or so acres of what became, after the deaths of Eugen and Edna/Vincent, the Millay Colony. The only one of the six Boissevain sisters of Eugen, Robbie, and Jan to come to the United States was my grandmother, Olga Boissevain van Stockum. Their cousin Nel Boissevain was the mother of Walraven van Hall, who was the "Banker of the Resistance." I have translated from the Dutch the only biography of Walraven, by Erik Schaap of Zaandam. Here is information about it: Here is a link to my new book: https://bit.ly/3I1sKE0.
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