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To this Millay replied, “On those terms, I think I will continue to live in this hell-hole.”

He once told her that no matter how she might flout college regulations, he wouldn’t expel her because he didn’t want another “banished Shelley” on his hands. President MacCracken punished Millay with reprimands and limited privileges for her infractions, but he also respected the talent and intelligence he saw in the young woman. She gained a reputation for breaking many of the college rules and often found herself before the new president, Henry Noble MacCracken, for discipline. The regulations of college life as well as her three to four year seniority over most of those in her class made adjustment to Vassar difficult for Millay. Vincent Millay would be recognized as a truly independent woman, becoming the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, a vocal feminist, an activist and openly bisexual.īefore beginning at Vassar the 21-year-old poet spent a preparatory semester at Barnard, and in the fall of 1913, she matriculated into the class of 1917. Vincent Millay.īorn in Rockland, Maine, in 1892, the eldest of three daughters all raised by their mother, Cora, a working nurse and enthusiast of the arts, Millay read and wrote voraciously throughout her childhood, and she was recognized from her earliest years for both her intelligence and her willful spirit. The poet who composed the piece, called “Vincent” by her family and close friends, was Edna St. The poem that brought the young woman a chance to go to college brought her to national attention when it was published in the poetry anthology The Lyric Year (1912) where it won fourth prize out of 10,000 entries. Dow, enough for her to encourage the young poet to apply for a scholarship at Vassar and to promise to provide the money for any other expenses as well.

By the time the poem, “Renascence,” was finished she had impressed one guest, Caroline B.

“All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood…” she began. In the summer of 1912 at an evening party in Maine, a young woman with light red hair was asked to recite some of her poetry to the guests.