one of the boys

Edna St. Vincent Millay never described herself as a feminist, and the truth is that she said some pretty awful things about her sex. That said, she let her husband handle the housekeeping, and she never shied away from anything just because it was considered unwomanly. Thanks to her undeniable poetic talent, her strikingly expressive voice, and her unusual beauty, she was able to live a life that was impossible for most women at the time. The darling of not just the literary community but the whole country, she was celebrated as much for her girlish appeal as for her strong and individual writing, but in truth it was the contrast between the two that made her so irresistible.

A lush and a womanizer, living off money borrowed from her publisher and cuckolding husband with a wide assortment of lovers, even moving out of her home to live with a poet many years her junior, she spent the last years of her life in a state we’d decry in a man. But there’s something all too appealing about a woman who embraces her vices, who grasps wholeheartedly all the privilege her talent and circumstances afford her, who lives, and it’s hard to phrase this any other way, like a man. She was a pretty and brilliant bad girl, the kind of character you can’t take your eyes off, equal parts seductive and heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking not just because her story ends in tragedy, not just because she dies beloved but broke, addicted to opiates and drink, but also because of the first two things I mentioned. Despite being an inspiration to many young women and a hardworking advocate for young, gifted poets, she didn’t learn from her own example. Or perhaps she simply didn’t want to admit the fact that her clothes were discussed as much as her books, or that her libertine ways helped feed the national fascination that helped sell those books. It’s all conjecture, of course, but it’s hard not to imagine that being the subject of such constant examination must have been exhausting, must have made her realize the contrast between coverage of her life and work and that of her contemporaries. But she, so daring, so flirtatious, so ahead of her time, and so direct in so much of her correspondence, never told the world that more was required of her simply because she was a woman.

If it’s not obvious, I just finished reading her biography. The year it came out, everyone and their sister gave me a copy, because apparently it was the perfect gift for me. Despite the near-unanimity of the gift, it took me a while to get around to reading it. Instead, I dutifully thanked them, returned the extra copies, and shelved one copy to read later. Seven years later, I finally read it, and though I’m not generally into biographies, it actually was a pretty damn good gift. If you don’t know me (and if that’s the case, seriously, what are you doing reading my blog? You’re probably the first.), you may not be aware how easy it is for me to identify with a pretty, young, outspoken poet who grew up in Maine and likes to cause trouble. But it’s very easy, and that’s why I’ll treat her life as both an inspiration and a cautionary tale. The moral: speak up. Even more.

portland, portland, chicago

A city of books and bridges, roses and almost ripe tomatoes, turning from green to gold to orange to a bright sweet red I won’t get to see. I’m not (and if I’ve seen you in the past week, I’ve told you this) a crier, but Portland’s a hard city to leave, and it’s hard for me to tell if it’s worse this time than when I moved away from that other city with the same name, but I can tell this much: it’s wrenching.

It’s not just the people, nor the restaurants and shoe shops, the famous bookstore or my favorite grocery store; it’s not anything I can define or describe, just the last eight years of my life. But this isn’t really a personal blog, so I won’t go on for long. I’m reading Nicholson Baker, and he writes about himself in a way that’s more compelling than my own self-description could ever be. It makes me want to try, but I do think it’s dangerous to dip too far into that sort of blogging. It’s just not the kind of thing a girl like me ought to do.

Last time I was in Maine, I spent the night at a lakeside cottage, playing Scrabble and drinking wine and eating pasta tossed with olive oil and mushrooms gathered from the neighbors’ yard. In the morning, we swam in the lake between turns of a slow and lazy Scrabble game, and talked about local politics. At some point my hostess made passing reference to a friend of hers who lived nearby, a man she’d just seen at town meeting, her friend Nick Baker. And then she asked me if I’d ever read any of his stuff. I was so starstruck that I think I actually gasped. Audibly.

I realized less than halfway through the book I read before this one (Elizabeth Hand’s Saffron and Brimstone), that its author is from Maine, too. Though I do admit that sometimes, due to a perverse kind of home state pride, I seek out Maine writers, this was just a happy accident. I’d like to ascribe this to some kind of regional magic, some brilliance imbued upon Maine residents by the rocky coast and nasty weather, or some unconscious kinship that makes me pick these books by instinct, but I can’t. All I can say is that it is an indisputably nice thing. And maybe, a few years from now, I’ll find an abundance of Oregonians popping up on my bookshelf. It’s hard to say.

stop word

Governmental use of misleading language to obfuscate the available information isn't really news any more, I suppose. Still, this breaks my heart. When a search for "abortion" in a government-funded database devoted to information about reproductive health returns no results, something is wrong. And my problem here is not just the moral one, though that's, needless to say, large. It's also a problem of efficiency and design. They haven't removed the information, presumably in order to avoid being accused of censorship. But they have made it much, much harder to find.

Sure, you can search for "unwanted pregnancy" or, (as the representative from the database suggests) "Fertility Control, Postconception," but these are not the terms people use. A good search engine is responsive to both vernacular and specialized terms, providing results that allow the user to learn the more specialized terms as their research progresses. Now, to use POPLINE, you have to know in advance.

Turning to their handy "Keyword Guide" won't help you either, because Abortion, Abortion Law, and Abortion Rate are all still misleadingly listed as keywords.

imagine me an aging spinster

Miss Blake
remembered, today
that she used to write poems
and it was good.

eurydice, lost

Julieta Campos died a few days ago. Searching online, I've been able to find only one English language obituary. It's short, and I hope that's because I missed the longer ones; maybe they've all disappeared since last week. This is probably not a reasonable hope, but I'm holding on to it, regardless.

I'll re-read The Fear of Losing Eurydice soon, and I'll write more about it then.

In the meantime, an interview.

the bittersweet

the sweet, first: Maud Newton used the little blurb I wrote for her about Casco Bay Books, despite the fact that I totally failed to make good on my plans to write something longer and better, as well as my plans to ask her to link to me here if she was going to link to me anywhere.

the bitter: For the first time in years, my vacation to Maine was so whirlwind that I didn't make it to the store. Turns out, though, that I would have been even more sad if I had gotten there. Apparently, my favorite book store in the world is no more.