Poet in Mind: E.E. Cummings

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For National Poetry Month, I wanted to spotlight a poet that I enjoy reading. There are plenty of them that I like…for different reasons.

One of the poets I enjoy reading is E.E. Cummings…Edward Estlin Cummings.

He was born in 1894 and actually wanted to be a poet at an early age. Between the ages of 8 and 22, he wrote a poem a day. He explored many of the traditional forms and by the time he was finished at Harvard in 1916, found a voice in dynamic use of language. His subject matter focused on traditional themes: love, childhood, flowers…all somewhat old-fashioned by “modern” standards of the day. Yet, he succeeded through experimentation with language and syntax, lack of punctuation or overuse of it, and was an innovator in concrete poetry, or shape poetry. Very much a romantic, he was able to inject life into a lyrical voice with such ingenuity.

A wonderful example of his use of language, and how the tone of his words shaped the poem (even though they make no sense grammatically) is in [anyone lived in a pretty how town].

>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
with by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
published in Poetry (August 1940)

Other poems are far more obscure and yet, architecturally interesting. The sound of the words together with the flow of the line makes a sing-song quality to much of his poetry. You can read some of them here. Cummings was raised in a Unitarian family and was a pacifist in his younger years. During the 1st World War he enlisted in the ambulance corps, and was actually detained and imprisoned for 3 months by the French on suspicion of espionage. He and a friend were apparently bored with their jobs and inserted veiled and provocative comments into their letters home, just to baffle the French censors.

O sweet spontaneous by E. E. Cummings
O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the doting

fingers of
prurient philosophies pinched
and poked

thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy
knees squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring

Apparently, the man was also a philanderer. He wrote a trove of love poetry, some quite racy. He had an affair with one of his best friend’s wives, fathered a child with her, while they were still married. His friend continued to work on his behalf as a publisher after that. Cummings had a way with words…

supposing i dreamed this)… (IX) by E. E. Cummings
supposing i dreamed this)
only imagine,when day has thrilled
you are a house around which
i am a wind-

your walls will not reckon how
strangely my life is curved
since the best he can do
is to peer through windows,unobserved

-listen,for(out of all
things)dream is noone's fool;
if this wind who i am prowls
carefully around this house of you

love being such,or such,
the normal corners of your heart
will never guess how much
my wonderful jealousy is dark

if light should flower:
or laughing sparkle from
the shut house(around and around
which a poor wind will roam

A collection of Haiku

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It is April…which means that it is National Poetry Month. Make an effort to read some poetry, write some poetry, recall your favorite poem and share it with someone.

Here are some Haiku. small thoughts in fragments, just to get me in the mood, poetry’s sound bytes.

Enjoy!

A fawn dug under
spring’s layers of mud and snow;
thoughts among remnants.

*****

silhouettes on glass;
starlings avoid flying through.
headaches are a bitch.

*******

Expect colder skies;
winds catch you sleeping in Spring,
tornadoes toss trucks.

*****
Pirates lounge around,
dream of New England autumns,
judges and quarters.^

^apologies to Bob, Larry, Pa grape, and Mr. Lunt

Half Empty

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The pond is full now,
overflowing from the weekend rain.
The wind is lapping
the water to the edge,
just under the honeysuckle.

There was a path and small landing there, not two days ago.
A place just near the waters edge, protected from the afternoon sun.
On other days, we’d stretch out and cast lines towards the center,
and let the bobbers sit.

I always wanted to pull the lines closer,
but you were content
to let it stay
subject to the breeze
and what lay just under the surface.

Let the fish come to you.

The bluegill always skirted the shore,
playfully darting up and back,
expecting breadcrumbs.

But you and I never fed them.

The wind in the brush reminds me
that the landing is now covered.
I’ll leave, but will return tomorrow.

Yet, even when the water recedes,
it will never be the same.

Sonnet for Beginnings

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Through the layered woods stripped bare and grey
All seems quiet, dead from winter’s hold,
Twigs and leaves surrounding, uncajoled
From the season’s somnolescent stay.

Roots dug deep beneath the litter’s loam,
Just as dawn’s sweet kiss gives us the day
And new beginnings interrupt the sway,
Unseen proof of life amid the gloam.

Hearken to the living race we run.
Slow, the light, a penetrating gaze
Drops in parallel inside the maze
Yellow flowers rise, lean to the sun.

Harsh, as winter ends at knotted thread,
Gentle Spring returns, conceals the dead.

Traveling Grace

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If you were to ask me where and when love was born,
whether on a sunny afternoon under a shade tree
in the corner of a familiar room,
or under the eaves of a shelter during pouring rain,

I could not know which place to say.

Though equally the place would not have mattered
as much as the work to consumate the creation,

-how it got there-

and the time it took for every nuanced surface and texture
to be smoothed or grooved by wind and weather;
of touches and locked gazes
focused on the horizon,

a slow exhalation of breath
prepared for that exact moment.

Respite

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In a break from the contra danse,
when the light is new,
at its beginning, just strewn
in times of ephemeral appearance.

And the poet steps aside
to examine the heart
amid blind stops and starts,
focused with pinpoint precision.

Look away from the morning’s
unrhythmical phrase
in the opposite sky, anticrepuscular rays,
remind one of beauty’s emergence.

And the face is of love,
the blocked sounds reappear,
in an eye-blink, a mere
reminder of the dance’s convention.

Sonnet I

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Shirts are hanging on the dryer rack
facing this way, that way, all askew.
Pressed ones- never worn -pushed to the back,
thread-worn fabric-favorites- still in view.

All the trousers worn throughout the week,
a time when all the clothing is reborn,
cycled through the wash and wear to seek,
yet, when the day is come, some never worn.

Moved from wash and rinse to spin and dry,
the change in quarter marks an upward trend
past the crush of linen’s static cry,
to push the laundered load towards its end.

Then what remains, the slight adorning change
of coins and such, and shirts to rearrange.

think diamond

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is passion
jagged and obtuse,
or egg-shaped and small?

many thousands will think
and ask together.

we have a frantic need to know this.
while existing in burning air and suffocating space
spalling red blood tears
between each moment of sweetness
bits and pieces starting as wax, not honey.

it does not pour or flow,
rather builds and solidifies as stone
clashing with the surrounding sediment
to sharpened edges:

a gem that scars and heals.

that’s what love never tells you.

Soothing Refrain

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Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
~Langston Hughes

I went for a walk in the rain
because I wanted to soak.

I had an umbrella, but didn’t bring it with me,
keeping instead to the tree-covered lane
in the center of the boulevard.

Large drops penetrated the canopy
to drench me, but yet still
was coddling and consoling.

Passing people with ponchos
who smiled at my foolishness.
Street vendors stared and then
covered their wares with tarps and old towels.

There was the splash as I shuffled my feet.
The penetrating damp crept through my sleeves
Far from idyllic,
just a steady rhythm
of cascading drips through rattling leaves.

The trickle of rainwater down my cheek
as I awoke at the end of the street,
gave the vague clarity
of having just been kissed.