And, to round out the giving of words, I’ve been meaning almost all semester to write about this, one of my favorite poems:
the Camrbidge ladies who live in furnished souls
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished soulsare unbeautiful and have comfortable minds(also, with the church’s protestant blessingsdaughters,unscented shapeless spirited)they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,are invariably interested in so many things—at the present writing one still findsdelighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandyscandal of Mrs. N and Professor D…. the Cambridge ladies do not care, aboveCambridge if sometimes in its box ofsky lavender and cornerless, themoon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
I love E. E. Cummings’ poetry in general. There is something entirely spirited in the freedom of his language that prevents his lack of punctuation and titles from being troublesome to me. And the way he uses words I have always found to be incredibly beautiful. He paints with them, wraps the world in long and careful fingers and brings it closer to our grasping faces. I have always found this poem itself, an image of the women of his hometown of Cambridge, MA, to be striking, the way he makes them dull and flat, and in so doing plasters up an image of an unsuspecting, unnoticing society. He always does things with his poems, makes them bold and brilliant statements of his day. They are not solutions, only presentations, and in that way he is, I think, a lot like F. Scott Fitzgerald, who is one of my favorite writers. But what is true, too, with both of them, is that, beyond the social implications of their pieces, there is in their work a fundamental beauty of the written word. I am forever in love with the last three lines of this poem: “if sometimes in its box of/sky lavender and cornerless, the/moon rattles like a fragment of empty candy”. The power of the suggestion of his words strikes my heart–the image of the lavender sky, the grasp of its eternity in the word cornerless, and the thought of the moon rattling about the heavens.
Because I am so totally in love with E. E. Cummings’ work, I’m going to post another, this one, perhaps, more popular, and in my mind notable because of the way in which he uses parentheses to frame his writing.
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]i carry your heart with me(i carry it inmy heart)i am never without it(anywherei go you go,my dear;and whatever is doneby only me is your doing,my darling)i fearno fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i wantno world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meantand whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
And if anyone is particularly interested in E. E. Cummings, his book Six Nonlectures, a compilation of a series of talks he gave at Harvard, is breathtakingly beautiful and insightful.
Esther —
Although I value and appreciate e.e. cummings as a brilliant poet, I have never particularly been a fan of his work. I sometimes feel as though his poetry is stilted, or incomplete. Obviously, I’m no critic, but I don’t get that sense of satisfaction / completeness when I read his poetry. Then again, maybe that’s the point; perhaps he tries to give us a quick taste — but it’s just not my style.
I love the way you describe his work however. I can feel your passion through your writing.
–Sharon
I actually really enjoy E.E. Cummings Poetry and I appreciate a lot of his ideas. Probably my most favorite words from him are: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” It is a small quote I remember from reading from a copy of A Miscellany by E.E. Cummings as well. When I read it I felt it this can be applied to most of the people in the world, not only poets.