Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay: An Annotated Edition

Excellent collection of diverse set of best works in my opinion.Nice size and quality volume.

The best book I've found of selected poems by ESVM, which also contains useful notes.

Thoroughly enjoyed this Book.Kudos to Dr. Jackson for reviving Edna's Poems and bringing her back to life.

I really would prefer to give it 2 1/2 stars, but went with 2 instead of 3, having to choose, mainly because it's selling point is in its being "An Annotated Edition". If not for that, then 5 stars.The physical book is beautiful. The presentation of the poems is beautiful. It's certainly the most serious collection of Millay's poems available. On those grounds buy it.But to call the edition "annotated" is a stretch. Timothy Jackson's "annotations" are vaporously thin and uninformative. They're almost entirely of two kinds -- words that Millay changed/corrected; or possible references (based on Jackson's reading?) to other works/poems; and so dry you could dehydrate chalk dust. Whether Jackson is right as to the allusions, I don't know. He gives us no reason to think so other than superficial similarity.He gives entirely inadequate context to the poems: When were they written? Where? Were they published and where? Critical response? For whom were they written -- if any? Do we know? What do we know of Millay's life when they were written? There are suggestions for further reading at the end of the book but wait, wasn't that Jackson's job? Did they not pay him enough?The interesting thing about Millay is that there's a strong current of autobiography in her poems, but you get no sense of that reading Jackson's "annotations".Jackson is professor of English at Rosemont College and apparently earned a Ph.D. in editorial studies from the "Editorial Institute at Boston College"; and all I can say is that if this is what a Ph.D. in "editorial studies" gets you, call me unimpressed.

This book is disappointingly superficial. I expected more useful explication, especially more deeply mined from the biographies and from critiques of her and from commentaries sometimes found in poetry textbooks.

Teop couldn't have said it better!

A thing to be savoured slowly and deliciously. Annotations are helpful but not bothersome, enlightening but not pedantic.

A good selection of the work of this fine poet, well presented with a good introduction and brief but interesting biography by someone who is clearly sympathetic to the subject.