Marla Miller Writes

A highlight of this year was a month (April–poetry month!) in the deliciously delightful quarters of the Millay House Rockland. With a month of solitude in the home in which the poet was born, I was able to sift and sort through the material I had assembled so far, and to really think about where the project is going. I naturally opted to focus on Normena MacKinnon’s relationship with Edna St Vincent Millay, and over those four weeks gathered a list of some fifty known performances around the region. I also sat down with what’s known about her “set list,” and to think about her choices about which poems of Millay’s she chose to share with her audiences, and what that might tell me about her agenda for these recitations. It was a marvelous and generative time.

Afterwards, I had a welcome invitation from the editors of Third Fig, the site’s newsletter, to share some thoughts in an issue devoted to poetry recognitions. It’s a perfect theme, as there is a clear thread in my book project about the importance of prizes, awards, and recognitions for young creatives. In fact, I’ve spent the months since returning home from Rockland developing an essay on the thirty young women, Normena included, who all found themselves gathered together in the pages of the inaugural edition of Saplings, Scholastic’s annual anthology of selections from their competition for high school students. That short essay is here: https://millayhouserockland.org/the-third-fig-september-2026/first-figs. I’ll post more news about the longer article as I have it!