Sonnet - Emily Salamanca

)when what hugs stopping earth than silent is
more silent than more than much more is or
total sun oceaning than any this
tear jumping from each most least eye of star

and without was if minus and shall be
immeasurable happenless unnow
shuts more than open could that every tree
or than all life more death begins to grow

end’s ending then these dolls of joy and grief
these recent memories of future dream
these perhaps who have lost their shadows if
which did not do the losing spectres mime

until out of merely not nothing comes
only one snowflake(and we speak our names

-e.e. cummings

Something is stopping both the Earth itself and all affection. This something also causes tears to fall. The stopping leaves everything directionless and futile, almost like nothing at all is left. In fact, there is no more time for anything to happen in. Cummings believes that since everything inevitably dies then joy and pleasure are mere dreams. Yet, in spite of death, people love, snowdrops fall, and time wraps around us. 

He uses a Shakespearian sonnet form which contains 3 quatrains and one heroic couplet at the end, with an "abab cdcd efef gg" rhyme scheme. The turn comes at line 13, making the ending couplet quick and dramatic. Cummings uses a Shakespearian sonnet form in order to prescribe order and tangibility to a piece which uses mostly symbolic imagery. Whereas many writer fall out of a single form in order to shock the reader, Cummings wants the reader to have the ability to understand his work and follow along in a certain manner.


Cummings, E.e. "Sans Titre." Since Feeling Is First. October 1, 1953. Accessed December 9, 2015.