The poetry of
E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)
• "Among the most innovative of twentieth-century poets," Jenny Penberthy in the Dictionary of
Literary Biography.
•"No one else, has ever made avant-garde, experimental poems so attractive to the general and the
special reader." Randall Jarrell, The Third Book of Criticism,
• “One of the greatest lyric poets in our language.” John Logan in Modern American Poetry: Essays in
Criticism
Biographical Details (1894-1962)






E(dward) E(stlin) Cummings decided to become a poet when he was still a child. Between the
ages of eight and twenty-two, he wrote a poem a day.
By the time he was in Harvard in 1916, modern poetry had caught his interest. He began to
write avant-garde poems in which conventional punctuation and syntax were ignored in favour
of a dynamic use of language. (Founded the Harvard Poets Society)
After Harvard, Cummings went to New York. In this city he held his first and only job, three
months with P. F. Collier Son, Inc., mail-order booksellers
In April of 1917 volunteered for Ambulance Service in France, a popular choice of work for
pacifists.
September of 1917 held on suspicion of treason and sent to an internment camp in Normandy
for questioning after inserting provocative comments in letters he was censoring.
Cummings' first collection of poems, Tulips and Chimneys, appeared in 1923.
"The chief effect of Cummings' jugglery with syntax, grammar, and diction was to blow open
otherwise trite and bathetic motifs through a dynamic rediscovery of the energies sealed up in
conventional usage.... He succeeded masterfully in splitting the atom of the cute
commonplace." M. L. Rosenthal
Cumming’s concerns





Cummings' work drew both praise and criticism. His attacks on the mass mind,
conventional patterns of thought, and society's restrictions on free expression, were
born of his strong commitment to the individual.
In the "nonlectures" he delivered at Harvard University Cummings explained his
position: "So far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was, is, and forever
will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality."
As Penberthy noted, Cummings' consistent attitude in all of his work was
"condemning mankind while idealizing the individual." "Cummings' lifelong belief,"
Bernard Dekle stated in Profiles of Modern American Authors, "was a simple faith in
the miracle of man's individuality.
Much of his writing was directed against what he considered the principal enemies of
this individuality--mass thought, group conformity, and commercialism." For this
reason, Cummings satirized what he called "mostpeople," that is, the herd mentality
found in modern society.
Cummings had a strong belief in individuality, “his poems are constantly exhorting us
[the reader] to be original, independent, self-reliant. And he is scornful of everyone
who takes refuge in received ideas and conventional standards” (Kirsch, Adam).
Modernism








Modernism as a literary movement is seen, in large part, as a reaction to the
emergence of city life as a central force in society and its accompanying
commercialism, consumerism and rejection of the individual.
Breakdown of social norms and despair of individuals amongst an uncertain and
unmanageable future
Sense of spiritual loneliness, alienation, frustration and disillusionment
Cummings had a strong belief in individuality, “his poems are constantly exhorting us
[the reader] to be original, independent, self-reliant. And he is scornful of everyone
who takes refuge in received ideas and conventional standards” (Kirsch, Adam).
This is a shift from an epistemological way of exploring the world to an ontological
approach or, in simpler terms, a shift from a knowledge-based exploration to beingbased.
For those freaking out (always a concern when adults try to act all “I’m hip and cool
with the kids”) by verbosity, the meaning of Cummings' poems is generally the same
as the meaning of sunsets and rainbows. They don't mean, they just are!
Hamsun, Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mansfield, Woolf, Kafka, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound,
Hemingway
“A poem should not mean / But be." Archibald MacLeish
In his own words…


“My theory of technique, if I have one, is very
far from original; nor is it complicated. I can
express it in fifteen words, by quoting The
Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of
burlesk, viz. "Would you hit a woman with a
child?-- No, I'd hit her with a brick." Like the
burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of
that precision which creates movement.
(1933)
Viz – “that is to say”
l(a






“The most delicately beautiful literary construct that Cummings ever created”
(Kennedy, Dreams 463)
Opening poem in 95 Poems (1958) appeared alongside blank page.
2 phrases, 2 images, 4 words, 22 characters (including the title) and multiple
possibilities!
1. Think of all the ways that Cummings makes the image of the leaf falling look like,
well - a leaf falling.
(consider:
- the pace you are forced to read,
- arrangement of vowels and consonants,
- arrangement of numbers (i = 1 in Cummings’ poetry) and letters,
- word play
- parentheses,
- blank space)
2. Falling is a concrete act, loneliness is an abstract act, what relationship, if any, can
you suggest between the two?
3. Obviously the whole point of modernism is that the image simply is rather than
representing something else, but can you think of any possible symbolic or
metaphorical meanings?
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
13ead’s response
• seems to be an exploration of human feeling using both natural
and abstract image
•1-3-1-3-1 – emphasises stanza with one line emphasises the
‘oneness’ and accompanying ideas of loneliness and vulnerability
•Emphasises of oneness as loneliness and emphasis of an
individual’s experience within that loneliness
•Connection with loneliness and the image of falling
•Gentle way of sinking into one’s self, loneliness not portrayed as
despair, in fact it seems gentle, calm and peaceful
•Pattern of words shows the pattern of the leaf falling: staggering
of words – leaf caught on the wind is a a calm within a fall
•Alternating of consonants and vowels in stanza 2 is like a leaf
flipping as it falls
•Loneliness seems outside the leaf
•Uncertainty between the number and letter l – imperfect descent
of the leaf
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
Metaphoric meanings?






Falling as a human experience possibly error
Hence perhaps the fall itself is natural, likening
the fall of a leaf to the fall of psychological
experience
Falling into isolation.
The fall = religious connotation
Fall – autumn
Elderly life
Some possibilities





The single leaf falling is a metaphor for both physical
and spiritual isolation ~ Rushworth Kidder
Reader’s progress is slowed down by the shattered
syntax forcing reader’s eye in a similar movement as
when watching a descending leaf
Alternating vowels and consonants – twisting of leaf?
Metaphorically – vastness of space, smallness of human
endeavour amongst that space, isolation, loneliness,
One and lonely
Since feeling is first
since feeling is first
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 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 each other:then
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
1.
Explain what Cummings’ love poem has to
say about the relationship between
thought and feeling?
2.
What do the symbols of flowers, Spring
and blood contribute?
b. syntax, paragraph and parenthesis?
3.
What is added to the meaning of the
poem by considering the capitalisation,
space, dash and joining of words?
4.
I know it just is and that you’re not
supposed to be searching for D&Ms but
suggest what might be added to the poem
by the final line
In Just




List the ways that a sense of the wonder and
delight of childhood is captured by Cummings
What do you notice about his capitalisation,
spacings and layout in this poem?
Does the inclusion of goat-footed and
balloonman becoming balloonMan change your
reading?
Are you satisfied with the end?
How might the contents of this poem be linked
to some of the larger concerns of modernism?
“next to of course god america i
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The word ‘pastiche’ refers to the piecing together of fragments to form
a text or picture. What different styles of language have been pieced
together to form this poem?
Can you identify any allusions in this poem. What is being alluded to?
Why?
Can you suggest a reason for the lack of punctuation in the first 13 lines
of this poem?
Why do you think the first 13 lines are in speech marks?
Would you call this a patriotic poem? Give reasons
Put forward an argument for one or more of the following as being
satirical targets for this poem”
~ war
~ impressionable young men
~ patriotic jingoism
~ the sonnet form itself