Working at an independent bookstore during a quarter-life crisis shortly after 9\/11 was as\u00a0good a part-time job as any I might want. Every employee carried around some grudge against\u00a0their version of \u201cThe Man,\u201d from the former radical\/general manager, to the community\u00a0organizing assistant manager, to all the wanna-be-writers\u2014a group to which I belonged\u2014who\u00a0slung pages back and forth, griped about rejections, and sneered at a new wave of trust-fund\u00a0authors with books about their lost years in Prague.<\/p>\n
The writers we celebrated were from an earlier generation\u2019s drinking class\u2014the likes of\u00a0Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Charles Bukowski and other white men with lived-in\u00a0faces\u00a0who\u00a0cleaned\u00a0themselves up then died somewhat reformed. And while my personal reading list\u00a0stretched beyond these drunken uncles, the writers I turned to\u2014Don DeLillo, Jonathan Krakauer,\u00a0Kurt Vonnegut\u2014were still of the American white male variety. Even when I branched out and\u00a0read writers of color\u2014Ishmael Reed, Amiri Baraka, Charles Johnson\u2014the list was still\u00a0exclusively male. In fact, I made it through college, earned an English degree, and started\u00a0working in a bookstore without remotely connecting with the work of a single female writer.<\/p>\n
![\""The](\"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/edna-bookstore-1.jpg\")
<\/a>“The writers we celebrated\u00a0were from an earlier generation’s drinking class…”<\/p><\/div>\n
Part of the beauty of working in a bookstore had to do with being around so many titles and\u00a0genres. This was also a curse. When I squared myself up against everything I hadn\u2019t read, I fell\u00a0under the weight of a growing sense of self-loathing. I was in the midst of one such episode of\u00a0critical self-reflection\u2014restocking the biography section, scanning something about\u00a0Kerouac\u2014when a coworker handed me Savage Beauty<\/em>, a recently released biography of Edna\u00a0St. Vincent Millay.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you read it?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd she\u2019s hot,\u201d he added. \u201cAlways face this book out.\u201d<\/p>\n I knew exactly one Millay poem\u2014\u201cFirst Fig,\u201d which I was pretty sure everyone knew, and\u00a0up to that moment had never seen her face. Some looks simply captivate you in a way you can\u2019t\u00a0explain or shake. Could be the weight of a stare, an angle of cheek, a dimple. Millay on the cover\u00a0of Savage Beauty<\/em> was subtle, a little glib, but certainly someone I found myself wanting to know.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t stop trying to decipher what she was thinking, like she was onto something and might\u00a0tell me some of it if I asked her the right way. Before the end of my shift I decided to borrow a\u00a0copy\u2014another perk of the bookstore\u2014along with a copy of Early Poems<\/em> from the Penguin\u00a0Classics Series.<\/p>\n Edna St. Vincent Millay<\/p><\/div>\n Back at my apartment, my wife, noticing the books, started to ask a question then stopped.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI was going to ask what you\u2019re reading, but then I realized you won\u2019t actually read them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d she said. She picked up Savage Beauty<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s too long for you, the author\u2019s a\u00a0woman, and it\u2019s about a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n As much as I wanted to prove my wife wrong, I couldn\u2019t. Within a week I\u2019d barely cracked\u00a0the first 20 pages, and hadn\u2019t even bothered with the poems. Two weeks later I\u2019d gotten to page\u00a030. It wasn\u2019t the length of the book, or the author, or Millay. I simply was a terrible reader. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t sit still long enough to focus on something before my mind spun elsewhere.<\/p>\n I added Savage Beauty<\/em> to the growing pile of returns I needed to bring back to the\u00a0bookstore. My own personal \u201csad pile\u201d as I called it, a tower of borrowed titles that only\u00a0reminded me of everything I was starting to truly dislike about much about myself or the world\u00a0around me. Looking at the books sent a time-released drip of angst through me. I didn\u2019t feel\u00a0good about anything. I kept sniffing around for answers, but if anyone asked what I\u00a0wanted\u2014career, life, goals, the basics\u2014all I could do was shrug. There was the new war in\u00a0Afghanistan and the coming war\u2014our invasion of Iraq, still a year away, was already in the wind\u00a0if you bothered to listen. More personally, I couldn\u2019t find traction in my life. I was 24, had been\u00a0fired from my first full-time job out of school, and was working two part-time jobs to make\u00a0things go. And I was headed nowhere as a writer, sure to go straight from wanna-be to never-was.<\/p>\n I put Early Poems<\/em> on top of my sad pile, made coffee, then picked the collection back up\u00a0and sat down. The version of Millay\u2019s face that stared back was not the same coy soul on the\u00a0cover of Savage Beauty<\/em>. Here she was fierce, her eyelids hooded, her mouth pursed like she\u2019d\u00a0just finished asking, \u201cWhat are you gonna do about it?\u201d<\/p>\n Like the terrible reader I was, I skipped the introduction and opened to the collection\u2019s first\u00a0poem, \u201cRenascence,\u201d without knowing what I was about to fall into.<\/p>\n From the fourth stanza:<\/p>\n I saw and heard, and knew at last<\/p>\n The How and Why of all things, past,<\/p>\n And present, and forevermore.<\/p>\n The Universe, cleft to the core,<\/p>\n Lay open to my probing sense,<\/p>\n That, sickening, I would fain pluck thence<\/p>\n But could not,\u2014nay! but needs must suck<\/p>\n At the great wound, and could not pluck<\/p>\n My lips away till I had drawn<\/p>\n All venom out.\u2014Ah, fearful pawn:<\/p>\n For my omniscience paid I toll<\/p>\n In infinite remorse of soul.<\/p>\n All sin was of my sinning, all<\/p>\n Atoning mine, and mine the gall<\/p>\n Of all regret. Mine was the weight<\/p>\n Of every brooded wrong, the hate<\/p>\n That stood behind each envious thrust,<\/p>\n Mine every greet, mine every lust.<\/p>\n To read \u201cRenascence\u201d was, and still is, an act of submersion. It\u2019s as if Millay gained access\u00a0to a secret room in the psyche, crept lightly through the door, then reported verbatim through\u00a0song. I spent half an hour reading it\u2014stopping, staring out the window, closing my eyes,\u00a0returning to the words. I read out loud. I read quietly. I tracked the cadence, followed her\u00a0rhythmic changes, studied her willingness to stagger syntax, alter her meter and phrasing. The\u00a0combined effect is seduction through music, revelation and craft.<\/p>\n My bookstore shift didn\u2019t start until mid-afternoon. By late morning I\u2019d read the poem\u00a0three times, then swam through as much of Early Poems<\/em> as I could. I stepped out to our front\u00a0deck. It was warm for early March in Wisconsin but still cold. I watched my breath twist and\u00a0float off in wisps. The day possessed a gentle displacement. You could almost see the layers\u00a0where sadness, joy and calm rested atop one another.<\/p>\n Edna St. Vincent Millay – stamp<\/p><\/div>\n I bounced around from poem to poem, page to page. So many resonated with a meaning\u00a0that felt as attached to this historical moment as any other. Poems like \u201cSorrow,\u201d \u201cAshes of\u00a0Life,\u201d and \u201cThree Songs of Shattering,\u201d took me back to 9\/11 and the days immediately\u00a0after\u2014falling buildings, a smoldering world. \u201cIndifference,\u201d meanwhile, felt like the mindset I\u2019d\u00a0tried to adopt since the attacks. With her first three collections in one volume, I moved around,\u00a0studied various shifts in her voice and approach. In Second April, the last of the book\u2019s three\u00a0collections, I found Millay to be completely at peace with the darkness she\u2019d dipped in and out\u00a0of in the first two volumes.<\/p>\n Take \u201cLament,\u201d a poem where the speaker, dealing with a great loss, is completely certain\u00a0of herself\u2014even in her uncertainty. The irony found peppered throughout her younger poems is\u00a0gone, replaced by a dogged-yet-weary determination:<\/p>\n Lament<\/p>\n Listen, children:<\/p>\n Your father is dead.<\/p>\n From his old coats<\/p>\n I\u2019ll make you little jackets;<\/p>\n I\u2019ll make you little trousers<\/p>\n From his old pants.<\/p>\n There\u2019ll be in his pockets<\/p>\n Things he used to put there,<\/p>\n Keys and pennies<\/p>\n Covered with tobacco;<\/p>\n Dan shall have the pennies<\/p>\n To save in his bank;<\/p>\n Anne shall have the keys<\/p>\n To make a pretty noise with.<\/p>\n Life must go on,<\/p>\n And the dead be forgotten;<\/p>\n Life must go on,<\/p>\n Though good men die;<\/p>\n Anne, eat your breakfast;<\/p>\n Dan, take your medicine;<\/p>\n Life must go on;<\/p>\n I forget just why.<\/p>\n Life must go on. Millay wrote and published the three volumes in Early Poems<\/em> at a time of\u00a0considerable upheaval, from the culmination of World War I through the rise of European\u00a0Fascism. Eighty years later, early March, 2002, it was easy to guess that whatever was in the air\u00a0would no doubt linger\u2014maybe a year, maybe much longer. Certain smells never go away, no\u00a0matter how many wreaths we lay or regimes we change. In New York, they were digging\u00a0through an area simply called Ground Zero. The dead were still there. We weren\u2019t ready to forget\u00a0them. Even as we swore life must go on, we wondered why.<\/p>\n Millay opened a door for me that led to nearly every poet I\u2019ve read since I first encountered\u00a0her work. I bought the borrowed copy, held onto it for some time, then donated it a few years\u00a0later during a move. I missed having Millay around, and eventually picked up a new copy. Today\u00a0her poems move me through bundles of time with grace, and offer a glimpse of an earlier,\u00a0disenchanted version of myself. I still pause at the book\u2019s cover, amazed at the ripples of thought\u00a0behind her eyes.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Dave Jarecki<\/a> lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, daughter and two hounds. He is currently working on a book about high school baseball in the Pacific NW, and will be entering Portland State University’s MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) program in the fall. @davejarecki<\/a><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ specialty=”off” _builder_version=”3.9″ global_module=”2287″ prev_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row global_parent=”2287″ background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_image admin_label=”iTunes Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/itunes.png” url=”https:\/\/geo.itunes.apple.com\/us\/movie\/guys-reading-poems\/id1330861332?mt=6″ \/][et_pb_image admin_label=”Amazon Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/amazon.png” url=”https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Reading-Poems-Blu-ray-Patricia-Velasquez\/dp\/B07895ZWWF\/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1530808335&sr=8-2&keywords=guys+reading+poems” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Google Play Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/google-play-badge.png” url=”https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/movies\/details\/Guys_Reading_Poems?id=bQ4Tt-DfRWM&hl=en_US” \/][et_pb_image admin_label=”Vudu Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/vudu.png” url=”https:\/\/www.vudu.com\/content\/movies\/details\/Guys-Reading-Poems\/921534″ \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_image admin_label=”YouTube Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/youtube-logo.png” url=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bQ4Tt-DfRWM” \/][et_pb_image admin_label=”Blu-Ray Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Blu-Ray.png” url=”http:\/\/www.blu-ray.com\/movies\/Guys-Reading-Poems-Blu-ray\/199089\/” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Vimeo Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/vimeo.png” url=”https:\/\/vimeo.com\/ondemand\/guysreadingpoems\/248898991″ \/][et_pb_image admin_label=”Microsoft Buy Now” global_parent=”2287″ _builder_version=”3.9″ src=”https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Microsoft.png” url=”https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/p\/guys-reading-poem\/8d6kgwxp6gnt\/0001″ \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Dave Jarecki<\/strong><\/p> Working at an independent bookstore during a quarter-life crisis shortly after 9\/11 was as\u00a0good a part-time job as any I might want. Every employee carried around some grudge against\u00a0their version of \u201cThe Man,\u201d from the former radical\/general manager, to the community\u00a0organizing assistant manager, to all the wanna-be-writers\u2014a group to which I belonged\u2014who\u00a0slung pages back and forth, griped about rejections, and sneered at a new wave of trust-fund\u00a0authors with books about their lost years in Prague.<\/p> The writers we celebrated were from an earlier generation\u2019s drinking class\u2014the likes of\u00a0Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Charles Bukowski and other white men with lived-in\u00a0faces\u00a0who\u00a0cleaned\u00a0themselves up then died somewhat reformed. And while my personal reading list\u00a0stretched beyond these drunken uncles, the writers I turned to\u2014Don DeLillo, Jonathan Krakauer,\u00a0Kurt Vonnegut\u2014were still of the American white male variety. Even when I branched out and\u00a0read writers of color\u2014Ishmael Reed, Amiri Baraka, Charles Johnson\u2014the list was still\u00a0exclusively male. In fact, I made it through college, earned an English degree, and started\u00a0working in a bookstore without remotely connecting with the work of a single female writer.<\/p>[caption id=\"attachment_1246\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\"] Part of the beauty of working in a bookstore had to do with being around so many titles and\u00a0genres. This was also a curse. When I squared myself up against everything I hadn\u2019t read, I fell\u00a0under the weight of a growing sense of self-loathing. I was in the midst of one such episode of\u00a0critical self-reflection\u2014restocking the biography section, scanning something about\u00a0Kerouac\u2014when a coworker handed me Savage Beauty<\/em>, a recently released biography of Edna\u00a0St. Vincent Millay.<\/p> \u201cHave you read it?\u201d he asked.<\/p> \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p> \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd she\u2019s hot,\u201d he added. \u201cAlways face this book out.\u201d<\/p> I knew exactly one Millay poem\u2014\u201cFirst Fig,\u201d which I was pretty sure everyone knew, and\u00a0up to that moment had never seen her face. Some looks simply captivate you in a way you can\u2019t\u00a0explain or shake. Could be the weight of a stare, an angle of cheek, a dimple. Millay on the cover\u00a0of Savage Beauty<\/em> was subtle, a little glib, but certainly someone I found myself wanting to know.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t stop trying to decipher what she was thinking, like she was onto something and might\u00a0tell me some of it if I asked her the right way. Before the end of my shift I decided to borrow a\u00a0copy\u2014another perk of the bookstore\u2014along with a copy of Early Poems<\/em> from the Penguin\u00a0Classics Series.<\/p>[caption id=\"attachment_1265\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"] Back at my apartment, my wife, noticing the books, started to ask a question then stopped.<\/p> \u201cWhat is it?\u201d I asked.<\/p> \u201cI was going to ask what you\u2019re reading, but then I realized you won\u2019t actually read them.\u201d<\/p> \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p> \u201cWell,\u201d she said. She picked up Savage Beauty<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s too long for you, the author\u2019s a\u00a0woman, and it\u2019s about a woman.\u201d<\/p> As much as I wanted to prove my wife wrong, I couldn\u2019t. Within a week I\u2019d barely cracked\u00a0the first 20 pages, and hadn\u2019t even bothered with the poems. Two weeks later I\u2019d gotten to page\u00a030. It wasn\u2019t the length of the book, or the author, or Millay. I simply was a terrible reader. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t sit still long enough to focus on something before my mind spun elsewhere.<\/p> I added Savage Beauty<\/em> to the growing pile of returns I needed to bring back to the\u00a0bookstore. My own personal \u201csad pile\u201d as I called it, a tower of borrowed titles that only\u00a0reminded me of everything I was starting to truly dislike about much about myself or the world\u00a0around me. Looking at the books sent a time-released drip of angst through me. I didn\u2019t feel\u00a0good about anything. I kept sniffing around for answers, but if anyone asked what I\u00a0wanted\u2014career, life, goals, the basics\u2014all I could do was shrug. There was the new war in\u00a0Afghanistan and the coming war\u2014our invasion of Iraq, still a year away, was already in the wind\u00a0if you bothered to listen. More personally, I couldn\u2019t find traction in my life. I was 24, had been\u00a0fired from my first full-time job out of school, and was working two part-time jobs to make\u00a0things go. And I was headed nowhere as a writer, sure to go straight from wanna-be to never-was.<\/p> I put Early Poems<\/em> on top of my sad pile, made coffee, then picked the collection back up\u00a0and sat down. The version of Millay\u2019s face that stared back was not the same coy soul on the\u00a0cover of Savage Beauty<\/em>. Here she was fierce, her eyelids hooded, her mouth pursed like she\u2019d\u00a0just finished asking, \u201cWhat are you gonna do about it?\u201d<\/p> Like the terrible reader I was, I skipped the introduction and opened to the collection\u2019s first\u00a0poem, \u201cRenascence,\u201d without knowing what I was about to fall into.<\/p> From the fourth stanza:<\/p> I saw and heard, and knew at last<\/p> The How and Why of all things, past,<\/p> And present, and forevermore.<\/p> The Universe, cleft to the core,<\/p> Lay open to my probing sense,<\/p> That, sickening, I would fain pluck thence<\/p> But could not,\u2014nay! but needs must suck<\/p> At the great wound, and could not pluck<\/p> My lips away till I had drawn<\/p> All venom out.\u2014Ah, fearful pawn:<\/p> For my omniscience paid I toll<\/p> In infinite remorse of soul.<\/p> All sin was of my sinning, all<\/p> Atoning mine, and mine the gall<\/p> Of all regret. Mine was the weight<\/p> Of every brooded wrong, the hate<\/p> That stood behind each envious thrust,<\/p> Mine every greet, mine every lust.<\/p> To read \u201cRenascence\u201d was, and still is, an act of submersion. It\u2019s as if Millay gained access\u00a0to a secret room in the psyche, crept lightly through the door, then reported verbatim through\u00a0song. I spent half an hour reading it\u2014stopping, staring out the window, closing my eyes,\u00a0returning to the words. I read out loud. I read quietly. I tracked the cadence, followed her\u00a0rhythmic changes, studied her willingness to stagger syntax, alter her meter and phrasing. The\u00a0combined effect is seduction through music, revelation and craft.<\/p> My bookstore shift didn\u2019t start until mid-afternoon. By late morning I\u2019d read the poem\u00a0three times, then swam through as much of Early Poems<\/em> as I could. I stepped out to our front\u00a0deck. It was warm for early March in Wisconsin but still cold. I watched my breath twist and\u00a0float off in wisps. The day possessed a gentle displacement. You could almost see the layers\u00a0where sadness, joy and calm rested atop one another.<\/p>[caption id=\"attachment_1242\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"150\"] I bounced around from poem to poem, page to page. So many resonated with a meaning\u00a0that felt as attached to this historical moment as any other. Poems like \u201cSorrow,\u201d \u201cAshes of\u00a0Life,\u201d and \u201cThree Songs of Shattering,\u201d took me back to 9\/11 and the days immediately\u00a0after\u2014falling buildings, a smoldering world. \u201cIndifference,\u201d meanwhile, felt like the mindset I\u2019d\u00a0tried to adopt since the attacks. With her first three collections in one volume, I moved around,\u00a0studied various shifts in her voice and approach. In Second April, the last of the book\u2019s three\u00a0collections, I found Millay to be completely at peace with the darkness she\u2019d dipped in and out\u00a0of in the first two volumes.<\/p> Take \u201cLament,\u201d a poem where the speaker, dealing with a great loss, is completely certain\u00a0of herself\u2014even in her uncertainty. The irony found peppered throughout her younger poems is\u00a0gone, replaced by a dogged-yet-weary determination:<\/p> Lament<\/p> Listen, children:<\/p> Your father is dead.<\/p> From his old coats<\/p> I\u2019ll make you little jackets;<\/p> I\u2019ll make you little trousers<\/p> From his old pants.<\/p> There\u2019ll be in his pockets<\/p> Things he used to put there,<\/p> Keys and pennies<\/p> Covered with tobacco;<\/p> Dan shall have the pennies<\/p> To save in his bank;<\/p> Anne shall have the keys<\/p> To make a pretty noise with.<\/p> Life must go on,<\/p> And the dead be forgotten;<\/p> Life must go on,<\/p> Though good men die;<\/p> Anne, eat your breakfast;<\/p> Dan, take your medicine;<\/p> Life must go on;<\/p> I forget just why.<\/p> Life must go on. Millay wrote and published the three volumes in Early Poems<\/em> at a time of\u00a0considerable upheaval, from the culmination of World War I through the rise of European\u00a0Fascism. Eighty years later, early March, 2002, it was easy to guess that whatever was in the air\u00a0would no doubt linger\u2014maybe a year, maybe much longer. Certain smells never go away, no\u00a0matter how many wreaths we lay or regimes we change. In New York, they were digging\u00a0through an area simply called Ground Zero. The dead were still there. We weren\u2019t ready to forget\u00a0them. Even as we swore life must go on, we wondered why.<\/p> Millay opened a door for me that led to nearly every poet I\u2019ve read since I first encountered\u00a0her work. I bought the borrowed copy, held onto it for some time, then donated it a few years\u00a0later during a move. I missed having Millay around, and eventually picked up a new copy. Today\u00a0her poems move me through bundles of time with grace, and offer a glimpse of an earlier,\u00a0disenchanted version of myself. I still pause at the book\u2019s cover, amazed at the ripples of thought\u00a0behind her eyes.<\/p> --<\/p> Dave Jarecki<\/a> lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, daughter and two hounds. He is currently working on a book about high school baseball in the Pacific NW, and will be entering Portland State University's MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) program in the fall. @davejarecki<\/a><\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,9],"tags":[207,205,206],"class_list":["post-1240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cross-cut","category-updates","tag-dave-jareki","tag-edna-st-vincent-millay","tag-working-at-a-bookstore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2332,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/2332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guysreadingpoems.com\/grp_wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a> \"The writers we celebrated\u00a0were from an earlier generation's drinking class...\"[\/caption]<\/a> Edna St. Vincent Millay[\/caption]<\/a> Edna St. Vincent Millay - stamp[\/caption]