Poetry Blog - Emily Salamanca

Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings

Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 14, 1894. Although his father was the professor of his family, it was his mother who taught him a love of language and literature at a young age. His father taught at Harvard, where Cummings would earn both his M.A. and B.A. Later, he served in World War I as a volunteer for the ambulance corps, though he was a known pacifist. At one point, he was arrested in France because of the letter he had written back home. He documented this experience in his 1922 autobiographical novel The Enormous Room. He wrote traditionally styled verse such as sonnets, but did so with a proclivity for wit and whim. He focuses on nature, sexuality and love, in both a sensual and a spiritual way.

            Selected Poems explores his odd, Cubist style of writing. In Poem 4, he uses line spacing in order to break up his thoughts in a seemingly random way. This makes us pause to consider each line and how it relates to the subject. We treat adjectives like nouns in this way. They are their own thoughts. They carry their own weight. In Poem 2, he capitalizes irregularly. He begins with, “O It’s Nice To Get Up In…” then continues with regular capitalization until the third stanza. In this way, we connect the two capitalized phrases, “…In The Good Old Summer Time.” In Poem 4 of Spring, he switches into French mid-way through the poem. This makes the poem appear choppier, but also preserves his original thoughts without losing meaning through the translation. The French is actually quite vulgar, so his disguise in the other language provides a shelter for his true thoughts. Words like ‘putain’ and ‘cul’ are considered exceedingly rude within society. Switching languages, odd capitalization, and large spaces make his writing Cubist, in a sense. He makes a coherent thought using disparate pieces. His voice becomes apparent, despite the phenotypic oddity of the poems.

10

as if as

if a mys

teriouSly(“i am alive”

)

 brave

ly and(th

e moon’s al-down)most whis

per(here_inge r O

wing;ly:cry.be,gi N s agAains

t b

ecomin

gsky?t r e e s

!

m ore&(o uto f ) mor e torn(f og r

e

elingwhiRIs)are pouring rush fields drea

mf(ull

          y

            are.)

&

som

ewhereishbudofshape

now,s

tI

r

ghost

?s

tirf lic;k

e rsM-o

:ke(c

        1

i,

m

   !

b

  )&it:s;self,

mmamakmakemakesWwOwoRworLworlD

(page 44)

This poem rejects rhyme, meter, and even the typical poetry canon. Punctuation is somewhat random. Spacing is random. The words seem random. The random letter are, well, random. However, upon closer inspection, the reader actually attains meaning, despite all of the ‘noise.’ It begins with the speaker wondering about his existence. He repeats, “As if…as if…” in a mysterious manner, then projects, “I am alive.” The parentheses indicate his uneasiness, the quotes represent his lack of confidence. He is quoting someone else. His words are not his own. Then, he juxtaposes this with, “brave..ly.” He whispers, again a sign of his uncertainty. He confronts his childishness and nature and has a sort of existential crisis. What is his role in the universe? Is he becoming nature, or decomposing into it? He is torn. His dreams torment him. However, he knows that there, “…are pouring rush fields…heishbudofshape.” No exactly here, but here-ish. Ghosts flicker. Finally, he accepts, with a child-like babbling, “mmamakmakemakesWwOwoRworLworlD.” Mama makes the world.

I rarely, if ever write poetry, but I do have a fascination with art. Cummings uses visual clues as much as literary ones in order to advance the theme of his poems. While other poets use traditional styles to project their ideas, Cummings rejects the canon and chooses to write however he wants. Readers are not only amazed at the content of his poems, but also their layout. In this way, Cummings is a visual artist. He is puzzling. One can get enough meaning from just viewing his work as actually reading it. Cummings intentionally plays with tradition. And it’s wonderful.

Cummings, E., & Kennedy, R. (1994). Selected poems. New York: Liveright.

E.E. Cummings Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved January 13, 2016.