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"After a couple of brandies on top of the wine Cummings would deliver himself of geysers of talk. I've never heard anything that remotely approached it. It was comical ironical brilliantly colored damnably poetic and sometimes just naughty. It was as if he were spouting pages of prose and verse from an unwritten volume" - John Dos Passos
E. E Cummings (1894 - 1962) is an important, often overlooked, poet and painter. He is celebrated today for his eccentric typography and his light-hearted poetry. Most notably the frequently anthologized ?Maggie and Molly? and ?somewhere i have never traveled,? which was featured in the Woody Allen film Hannah and Sisters and "I carry your heart," which was in the film in her shoes .
Cumming's was a Harvard graduate, yet he was also anti-intellectual. Often Cummings would assert in his work that the best art could be found at the circus, amusement parks, burlesque shows and animations. Cummings anti-intellectualism stemmed from his belief that good art should inspire movement. He thought true art should move us to tears, to laugh, to fear; to anything that made people feel and desire to "transcend" their daily routines.
Richard Kennedy observes that Cummings hold a unique spot in modern literary history for his optimism in an era defined by social decay and warfare. Cummings optimism is evident in his criticism of T.S Eliot's The Wasteland that he called the ?wasteline? for its pessimism. Cumming's was a modern artist who rejected pessimism and wished to return to the values of romanticism and transcendentalism.
While conservative in his admiration for old literary movements, Cumming's also made predictions that might be considered ahead of time. In a mock interview that he conducted with himself for "Foreword to an Exhibit: I" (1944), Cummings identifies art and life as the same:
Why do you paint?
For exactly the same reason I breathe.
That's not an answer.
There isn't any answer.
How long hasn't there been any answer?
As long as I can remember.
And how long have you written?
As long as I can remember.
I mean poetry.
So do I.
Here, Cummings calls life and art synonymous. This is something that would be embraced by post-modern thinkers like Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard thirty years later.
Cumming's Links
- NOT "e. e. cummings"
- Norman Friedman in Spring, the offical Cummings journal, tells us why E. E Cummings name shoudl be spelled with capitals. He says that he has the "hope the dismal lowercase custom will disappear from the face of the earth."
- E. E. Cummings Art Gallery.
- A gallery of E.E Cummings paintings
- Etext of The Enormous Room
- Ebook of "The Enormous Room" for free at project gutenberg.
Recommended Items
Selected Poems
Richard Kennedy spent 20 years studying Cummings life and work. If anyone can, he should be able to put together a proper anthology. In this book I think you get exactly that - the perfect anthology Cumming's lifework.
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 07/25/2008)
E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962
This hardcover volume contains all of Cummings published and unpublished poems.
Amazon Price: $31.50 (as of 07/25/2008)
Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of E.E. Cummings (A Liveright Book)
This is the first and best complete biography of E.E Cummings. Moreover, even for this not interested in Cummings, it's a very interesting read and provides a great picture of life in the 20th century. For instance, the book talks about one of Cumming's friends who was a patient of Freud and Cummings experience in World War I.
Amazon Price: $14.93 (as of 07/25/2008)
Nowever
This album is great. Several electronic artists have taken E. E Cummings poems and used them as lyrics for their songs.
Amazon Price: $15.99 (as of 07/25/2008)
The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison (Princeton Classic Editions)
Amazon Price: $17.95 (as of 07/25/2008)
Poem - "i carry your heart with me"
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Cameron Diaz Reads E.E Cummings
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Cummings tackles the question - what is art?
"It is Art because it is alive. It proves that, if you and I are to create at all, we must create with today and let all the Art schools and Medicis in the universe go hang themselves with yesterday's rope. It teaches us that we have made a profound error in trying to learn Art, since whatever Art stands for is whatever cannot be learned. Indeed, the Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself; and the agony of the Artist, far from being the result of the world's failure to discover and appreciate him, arises from his own personal struggle to discover, to appreciate and finally to express himself. Look into yourself, reader; for you must find Art there, if at all."
Poem - somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
Text of the Poem
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
Summary - 1 - "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond"
Stanza 1
"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" begins with the title words. The words, "somewhere" and "travelled" imply that the speaker is about to tell the reader about a journey that he has taken or will take. This journey is a happy one, as the word "gladly" indicates, although the reader does not know at this point the destination of this journey. In the end of the first line and beginning of the second line, the poet clarifies that this journey is "beyond / any experience" that he has ever had. He also, curiously, notes that "your eyes have their silence." The "your" indicates that the speaker is talking to another person, who for some reason has silent eyes. The reader can determine that the poet is discussing metaphysical concepts, abstract ideas that cannot be experienced by one's physical senses. In the real world, eyes do not have the capability of producing noise, so they are, by default, silent. The discussion of the person's eyes, along with the use of the word "gladly," gives readers their first indication that this might be a love poem. Eyes are thought by many to be a window into a person's soul, and poets often describe their lovers' eyes in positive terms.
In the third line, the use of the words "frail gesture" indicates that the person to whom the speaker is dedicating this poem is most likely a woman. At the time this poem was written, frailty was often used to describe womanhood. While this idea has since become a negative stereotype to many, readers in cummings's time would have recognized this frailty as a compliment to the woman in the poem. The speaker notes that this woman's frail gestures contain "things which enclose me," or which he "cannot touch because they are too near." The speaker is not saying that these things are literally enclosing him. Instead, these things- the feelings that are produced in the speaker by this woman's enchanting glance-are so powerful that he feels enclosed by them. At the same time, although these feelings surround him, he cannot touch them, because they are so all-consuming that they have become a deeply ingrained part of him. At this point, the reader can see that when the speaker discusses the "somewhere" to which he is travelling, he is not talking about a literal, physical journey. Rather, his journey is metaphysical, and the woman's eyes are the means by which the speaker makes this journey.
Summary - 2 - (Cont)
Stanza 2
The speaker underscores the power of the woman's glance with the first two lines of the second stanza. The speaker notes that the woman can easily "unclose," or open him, even though he has up until that point "closed myself as fingers." Here, the speaker is talking about the power of love to change a person's perspective. The speaker could be talking about his feelings about love. Perhaps he has been hurt in the past and so has closed himself off from the idea of love. Or, he could be closed in the sense of being pessimistic about the current state of society. When cummings wrote the poem, the United States was in the grip of the Great Depression, a financial disaster that changed the lives and moods of many. In any case, the speaker's love for this woman has opened him up, and he is basking in these new emotions. In the third line of the stanza, the speaker elaborates on how the woman opens him up, using the analogy of a rose opening up in spring. In this poem, however, the speaker personifies the season of spring. Poets use personification when they give human-like qualities to nonhuman items. When the poet notes that "Spring opens / (touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose," he is referring to spring as a person, who is physically opening up the rose.
Summary - 3 - (Cont)
Stanza 3
The speaker continues his discussion of the woman's power, noting that just as she can easily open him up, "if your wish be to close me, i and / my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly." The speaker is in the woman's complete control, to the point that she has power over his life and his death. While death is generally considered a negative concept, in the context of this poem, the speaker describes it as beautiful, equating his hypothetical death with the impending death of a flower, which "imagines / the snow carefully everywhere descending." Again, the poet uses personification.
While a flower is alive in the organic sense, it does not have the human quality of imagination. By describing the rose in this way, the poet paints a unique picture. The rose, coming to the end of its seasonal life in the fall, is imagining the snow that will soon be falling, a sign of the flower's impending and unavoidable death in winter. Since the lifecycle of the rose is eternal (the flower will experience a rebirth again in spring) its death is not tragic. By equating his own hypothetical death at his lover's hands with the rose's death, the speaker's death is not tragic, either. It is important that the speaker does this. A discussion of death could very easily give this love poem a negative mood. By referring to death "beautifully," the poem retains the positive mood that it established with the word "gladly" in the first stanza.
Summary - 4 - (Cont)
Stanza 4
In the first line of the fourth stanza, the speaker alludes to the metaphysical quality of the woman's power, by noting that "nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals / the power of your intense fragility." Again, this woman's fragility, or femininity, is so powerful that it transcends the physical world. The speaker examines the "texture" of this femininity, which he says "compels" him with the "colour of its countries." A reader may at first be confused by the use of the word, "countries." The speaker does not literally mean that the woman's intense femininity is composed of countries, in a geographic sense. Rather, by referring to the woman in this way, the speaker makes the woman seem larger than life, as if her feminine powers occupy a metaphysical world of their own. The speaker has already referred to the physical "world" in the first line of this stanza. Now, in this feminine, metaphysical world, he examines the countries, or specific details that make up this woman's femininity, and they fascinate him. In the last line of the stanza, he notes that these feminine qualities can render "death and forever with each breathing." Here, the speaker builds on the idea of the previous stanza, underscoring the power that the woman has over his life and death.
Summary - 5 - (Cont)
Stanza 5
As the speaker notes in the final stanza, as much as he examines the specific aspects of the woman's femininity, he does not know "what it is about you that closes / and opens." The speaker is unsure how the woman has such a power over him, how she can open him or close him, how she can control his life and death so easily. This is not a bad thing. The speaker does not want to know. He is caught up in the mystery of the woman's power and knows only that "something in me understands / the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)." Previously in the poem, the speaker has equated his lover's power to the power that spring has to open a rose. Now, he is saying that his lover's power is even stronger than this natural, seasonal power. In one final, potent image, the speaker underscores the idea that this woman's power is unmatched by anything in nature: "nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands." The speaker is personifying the rain, and imagining it as the "hands" that spring uses to open roses. While this is an impressive natural power, the speaker says that his lover is even more impressive. Her "hands" are smaller, which in this context means that the woman has the ability to open up the speaker to an even deeper extent than that of a rose opened by the spring rains.
Poem - I was sitting in mcsorley's."
Text of Poem
I was sitting in mcsorley's. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing.Inside snug and evil. the slobbering walls filthily push witless creases of screaming warmth chuck pillows are noise funnily swallows swallowing revolvingly pompous a the swallowed mottle with smooth or a but of rapidly goes gobs the and of flecks of and a chatter sobbings intersect with which distinct disks of graceful oath, upsoarings the break on ceiling-flatness
the Bar.tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warmlyish wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting taps plus slush of foam knocked off and a faint piddleof- drops she says I ploc spittle what the lands thaz me kid in no sir hopping sawdust you kiddo he's a palping wreaths of badly Yep cigars who jim him why gluey grins topple together eyes pout gestures stickily point made glints squinting who's a wink bum-nothing and money fuzzily mouths take big wobbly footsteps
every goggle cent of it get out ears dribbles soft right old feller belch the chap hic summore eh chuckles skulch. . . .
and I was sitting in the din thinking drinking the ale, which never lets you grow old blinking at the low ceiling my being pleasantly was punctuated by the always retchings of a worthless lamp.
when With a minute terrif iceffort one dirty squeal of soiling light yanKing from bushy obscurity a bald greenish foetal head established It suddenly upon the huge neck around whose unwashed sonorous muscle the filth of a collar hung gently.
(spattered)by this instant of semiluminous nausea A vast wordless nondescript genie of trunk trickled firmly in to one exactly-mutilated ghost of a chair,
a;domeshaped interval of complete plasticity,shoulders, sprouted the extraordinary arms through an angle of ridiculous velocity commenting upon an unclean table.and, whose distended immense Both paws slowly loved a dinted mug
gone Darkness it was so near to me,i ask of shadow won't you have a drink?
(the eternal perpetual question)
Inside snugandevil. i was sitting in mcsorley's
It,did not answer.
outside.(it was New York and beautifully, snowing. . . .
Summary - "I was sitting in mcsorley's."
Cummings first published "i was sitting in mcsorley's" in his collection Tulips & Chimneys, which appeared in 1923. It has also been anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Different versions of the poem have been printed over time.
The poem is set in McSorley's Ale House, where cummings frequently drank. It is a New York City saloon on East Seventh between Second and Third Avenues. Known as a favorite haunt of bohemians and artists, McSorley's opened in 1854, and both Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy are said to have visited the saloon. In the poem, the speaker, alternately meditative and descriptive, depicts his experience inside the saloon in typical cummings fashion, using nouns as verbs and vice versa, coining portmanteau words (words whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms), twisting syntax, and fragmenting words. The poem visually resembles prose, with its division into twelve paragraph-like sections.
Like many of the other poems in Tulips & Chimneys, "i was sitting in mcsorley's" embodies the opposition between the organic, natural world, and human society, what cummings refers to as "manunkind." Cummings's description of the bar is thick with sensuous and concrete images and effectively conjures the feel, smell, and sight of a saloon. The descriptions themselves also mimic the often sloppy way the brain processes perceptions and produces language when affected by alcohol. Cummings's love for the city and his revulsion of humanity are both evident here.
Line by Line Analysis of "nothing is more exactly terrible than"
Cummings wrote "nothing is more exactly terrible than" in 1930 when he and his girlfriend, Anne Barton, we're about to break up. The sonnet is a meditation on loneliness. It first saw publication in This Quarter, a popular liberal magazine, and later in Cummings own book, ViVa (1931).Lines 1-5: Create a sense of burning nostalgia. The memories of Anne in the house spark auditory hallucinations of her laughter.
Lines 6-9: Cummings looks out the window thinking of the ghost of his lost love and then witnesses a couple hugging in a park.
10-15: The staircase becomes an extended metaphor where Cumming in his mind continually moves upwards looking for Anne. While he is not with her, the memory of her image keeps him looking for her.
16: The reader becomes aware Cumming's is just staring into a mirror. The mirror is symbolic to Cummings narcissism in the relationship.
"Nothing is more exactly terrible than"
nothing is more exactly terrible than
to be alone in the house, with somebody and
with something)
You are gone. there is laughter
and despair impersonates a street
i lean from the window, behold ghosts,
a man
hugging a woman in a park. Complete.
and slightly (why?or lest we understand)
slightly I am hearing somebody
coming up stairs, carefully
(carefully climbing carpeted flight after
carpeted flight. in stillness, climbing
the carpeted stairs of terror)
and continually i am seeing something
inhaling gently a cigarette (in a mirror
Poem - "Since Feeling is first"
Text of the Poem
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Letters of E. E Cummings
Letters written by Cummings to family and friends
Dear Mother and Father -
Sorry not have written you before: have been more than occupied in finding out the truth concerning Elaine and myself.
Only now, incredible as it may seem, do I realize that I never attempted to understand the person for whom I thought I cared most in life, & who understands me better then anyone alive. Once to understand this person is, for me, at last to understand myself: I owe her everything fine in my life - I have hurt her more than anyone but myself, perhaps can ever know - there remains only 1 course: one way to show her how deeply I comprehend my own selfishness & how perfectly I recognize her own fineness - to help her, so far as I can help her.
I appreciate, you may believe the telegram & your attitude of agreement with me.
Have met "the man" twice since I saw you - have explained that I feel unworthy of Elaine & am therefore absolutely trying to aid her to free herself, with the understanding that once divorced her life is entirely her own affair - & I have shaken hands.
I hope that my of view is clear to yourselves. It can be summed up in one sentence.
Anyone so magnificent as she should be allowed to entirely live. (Compared with her life, my own does not so much as matter to the wearer)
I never before realized how lucky Mopsy is & will be in having Elaine has a mother!
March 21 1942?
Dear Ezra -
today is March 21, the First Day Of Spring; we honour you and it, as (of November 6) you honour it and us. Beauty also sends love
I have no and never had an and never shall have until having's obligatory (which God forbid!) radio. This is not out of disrespect for you; it's into respect for me. So happens the latter individual doesn't begin if abovementioned endlessness occurs. Maybe he's odd. Or maybe to corrupt - i.e. spiritually betray - more people most quick equals the instrument of delusion beforementioned. As for de gustibus, all you young sprigs are plumb unlucky: I, per contra,had as a kid a real musicbox.
Oldage entails, of course,socalled disadvantages. E.g. have spent some months wrestling with (1) a game leg - "sciatica" (2) a bum back - "sacro-iliac"; both were eventually diagnosed (via Xrays) as "arthritis." An now up, & somewhat about, in a most imposing corset; which I hope to be rid of before the time when birds migrate. Maybe all said nonsense might be blamed on the war? Anyhow, something's taught me what I never suspected: that health is a thing of wonder; yes
Brief Discussion of Emni
A Romantic Dualism
Eimi (Greek for I Am) is a travel memoir of Cummings 1931 voyage to Russia. While most of Cummings work is bitterly abstract, Eimi is especially incompressible. Not surprisingly, during its publication in the March of 1933 it was met with harsh criticism and generated almost no sales. Surprisingly, even though Cummings holds a secure spot in literary history, no publisher has sought to republish it since 1949.
Despite its obscurity Eimi contains various gems of Cummings literary genius that the casual reader can enjoy. Consider this passage:
Is there anything more beautiful - even a woman - than a flower? And women are so rarely beautiful; that's why we worship them if they are. Whereas flowers almost never succeed in being ugly, therefore we are inclined scarcely to notice them
(K) there is an I Feel; an actual universe or alive of which our merely real world or thinking existence is at best a bad, at worst a murderous mistranslation; flowers give me this actual universe
Give (he said) yes (he stopped. Eyes: looking dreamily toward me with something beneath shyness; through me with dreamily something beyond agony or all pain). Thank you; poets don't speak often.
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Overview of E.E Cumming's Paintings
Poem - "i thank You God for most this amazing"
Text of the Poem
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of allnothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
i like my body when it is with your
Text of Poem
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
may i feel said he
Text of Poem
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
Poem / Video - a leaf falls
a leaf falls
a poem by e.e. cummings to the music of debussy's claire de lune.
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