Audiobook · read by volunteers
Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
Read by Andrea L, Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Betsie Bush, Cori Samuel, JemmaBlythe, Patricia Oakley, Peter Yearsley, Ted Delorme · 8 chapters · 22 min
About the book
The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge is a poem named for a woman who sings at the edge of the woods, and Edna St. Vincent Millay's title alone sets a mood that suits a dark evening. It is a poem for the ear, with a rhythm that is easy to follow, which is why LibriVox volunteers chose it to mark Halloween in 2006. Eight different readers each recorded the poem, so that you can hear it eight times in a row, each in a different voice. The whole collection is short, and listening to the contrast between the readings is a quiet pleasure in itself. Millay's lyrics made her one of the best-known American poets of the 1920s, and a poem so tied to the sound of a speaking voice is well suited to being heard several times over.
Introduction
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was an American poet who rose to fame in the years after the First World War. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1923 and was known for lyrics that combined strict form with a daring, personal voice. Born in Maine, she first came to notice with the long poem Renascence, published in 1912 when she was still very young, and she later settled in Greenwich Village, the artistic quarter of New York. Her work captured the mood of an era of changing manners, and she was also admired for her public readings.
The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge is a poem from the early 1920s with the swing of a ballad and a strong speaking voice. Millay was a master of the sonnet and of lighter, more playful verse, but she was equally comfortable with darker themes, and her ear for the speaking voice is plain here.
This recording belongs to a LibriVox weekly poetry project, in which volunteers each read the same text. It was the project for the last week of October 2006 and was chosen for the season of Halloween. There are eight versions, each from a different reader, and together they last about twenty-five minutes. The set is brief enough to hear in a single sitting. Listening to several in succession reveals how much a poem can change with pacing, emphasis and tone. It is a short, atmospheric and entertaining collection, well suited to a dark autumn night, and a good way to discover a poet who deserves to be better known.
Public domain
Edna St. Vincent Millay died in 1950: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text