Was Edna St. Vincent Millay from Maine?

Who's asking: Jason Hersom, Kents Hill, ME

Yes. Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was born in Rockland, spent much of her childhood in Camden, and spent summers in adulthood on Ragged Island in Casco Bay. Her poem "Renascence" is supposed to have been inspired by the view from Mt. Battie, in Camden: "All I could see from where I stood/Was three long mountains and a wood..."

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Travel" was the first adult poem I ever learned by heart, when I was seven or eight years old.

The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day,
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming
But I see its cinders red on the sky
And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.

Five Random Songs

"Candylion," Gruff Rhys. Solo work from the lead singer of Super Furry Animals. A little precious and jingly, but I like it.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice," Beach Boys. Brian Wilson met his first wife when she was 14 and he was 21; they married only a couple of years later.

"Wonder," Natalie Merchant. I associate this CD (Tigerlily) with my former employer's old satellite office in Dallas, which was where I first heard it.

"Dead King," Espers. This version of the song comes from Into the Dark, the companion CD to the UK edition of The Unquiet by John Connolly. A longer version is on Espers II, which could almost be a soundtrack for Connolly's Book of Lost Things.

"Online," Gnarls Barkley. This CD (St. Elsewhere) will always remind me of the summer of 2006. I never got tired of it, not even the single "Crazy."