Candle queens remembered

"I'm burning my candle at both ends. It will not last the night. But, oh, my foes, and, ah, my friends. It gives a lovely light!"

These words are by bisexual poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), the subject of the fascinating best-selling biography, "Savage Beauty," by Nancy Milford (Random House). Her poetry - touching, independent, light, feminist, sardonic - is once again reaching new, younger, audiences, many LGBT.

My acquaintance with her poetic gifts began with the sonnets. When I was getting over my first "big affair," I memorized Millay 's "Time does not bring relief/ All you have lied who told me time would ease me of my pain./ 1 miss him in the weeping of …