Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner

The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Summary

Drawing together several volumes, the award honored Millay's blend of metrical virtuosity with frank explorations of desire, independence, and grief. She moved easily between strict sonnet sequences and supple ballads, letting candid feeling animate inherited form. Her voice gave a generation of women readers a confident, unsentimental lyric idiom.

Historical Context & Significance

Millay became the first woman to win the "official" prize. She was a symbol of the "flapper" era's social liberation.