I recently
discovered the poet E.E. Cummings thanks to my American Literature class. I
believe I have heard of him somewhere, but I am not sure. I never had read
anything of his, nor have I seen any of his artwork until our recent pod
assignment for poetry.
Out of all of
the poets I have read, even Edgar Allan Poe (and I adore Poe), E.E. Cummings
struck a chord with me. I can see why he became so famous! Maybe it’s the
simplicity of the lower case letters and assigned words that form a much deeper
and complex message; or it could have been the way he structured his poems by
aligning the words far apart and capitalizing certain letters for emphasis. I
can tell how Cummings wanted his readers wanted to appeal to them, and that is
through sight and sound. In the brief blurb about Cummings it stated,
“Cummings’ verse is characterized by common speech and attention to the visual
form of the poem—that is, the poem as it appears on the page as distinguished
from its sound when read aloud” (952). What is interesting to me is that he
never really titled his poems, so most of his poems are titled what he wrote in
the first line. I wonder why he would never title his poems.
Maybe because he thought his poem
spoke for itself and did not need one, or the title may have overshadow the
poem. It is a mystery.
My favorite
poem by Cummings is “anyone lived in a pretty how town”. When I first read this
poem, I thought of anyone (like a nobody) living in a small town (much like
me). I must have read that poem aloud ten times in one sitting, soaking in
every syllable and absorbing the meaning. The more I recited it aloud, the more
I understood that the poem signified the passing of time. Compared to the first
time I read it, it did not really relate to anything of a small town.
I wanted to post a link that had
Cummings recite his poem. His voice sounds like he crafted the poem into a
song, and it sounds like a dream. I hope you appreciate it as much as I do!
References
Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology
of American Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.
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