Cecilya Lundy
ERH-203-01
Maj. Knepper
Help Received: None
The Loneliest Number
Poetry is the one subject that people honestly either love or hate, and it has the
power to make the world seem so small and so big in just a few words. E.E. Cummings wrote a
poem that some may think means absolutely nothing, but to people that feel a connection with
this poem receive a big message from it. The idea of loneliness that lies in a solitary situation,
this stands out because of the multiple ways the reader can imagine the number one
throughout the poem helps the reader image how lonely life actually is.
At first glance this poem is very difficult to understand because of its form, when the
reader gives an image to the form the poem they can almost imagine a single leaf that is falling.
This poem is made up of four words, “A leaf falls, loneliness.” When glancing at the poem one
can almost see the image of the number one in the way of the poem. Also when looking at the
way the words are spread out the only word that is on a single line is one. This is showing the
emphasis of how solitary the idea of one actually is. If the reader compares this poem to the
world instead of a tree, they can imagine themselves and the way that they are only one person
in a sea of people. But when comparing this poem to a tree the reader can imagine how lonely
one leaf must be because leaves usually fall in multiples.
Overall when one reads this poem the idea of loneliness stands out because of the
multiple ways that the message of the number one gets across. This helps the poem to be more
relatable and although at first it may seem like a mess, but isn’t being a mess a part of
loneliness?