For this weeks blog post, I decided to write a creative imitation of Edna St. Vincent Millay poem, [Gazing upon Him Now, Severe and Dead]. This week was the first time I have ever read Millay, and I have to say, I was enthralled with her prose. I love how Millay is able to convey a plethora of emotions within her poems that oppose each other, specifically, in the poem I have chosen to imitate, emotions that fall under the umbrella of familiar love juxtaposed by the imagery of a dead lover. Millay seems to put a certain pressure on her language, which gives it a sense of urgency. This language Millay employs, as our anthology states, is not necessarily archaic, but is slightly elevated and works nicely in the format of the Shakespearean sonnet.
Time has not passed kindly, how now it slows
Remnant bits not caught through the fine mesh sieve
Reminders of a world she no longer knows
And the hours they pass rough like a whip
Through lines of a face painted stiff with guilt
She thinks he is no longer beautiful
To see ruins of the home the two had built
From the wooden floorboards, and from the walls –
Collected dust, mark of residual love
She was one who longed to love, hard, but kind.
The damaged ones, the ways they are designed.
And when she sets her heart on things not set before –
The one who possesses a mind and heart,
She longs, she needs, something more than something that falls apart.
I structured this imitation similarly to the original poem, making sure to follow Millay’s rhyme scheme in order to preserve (or attempt to preserve) the sound of her prose. I also tried to adhere closely to the meter of each line so that the poem would mimic the original as best as possible. This imitation piece was quite challenging, but very fun to work with!
