e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings (1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings
(1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings
(1894-1962)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings
[Artists are those] who have discovered (in a mirror surrounded with mirrors)
something harder than silence but softer than falling, the third voice of "life"
which believes itself and which cannot mean because it is.
e. e. cummings, six non-lectures
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings
the painter
fourthdimensional
abstraction
Oil on
canvasboard
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings
the painter
Flowers and
Hat: Patchen
Place, c. 1950,
oil on canvas,
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings
the painter
Noise Number
1, 1919, oil on
canvas,
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings
the painter
lone figure and
tree in stormy
sunset
Oil on canvas
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
e. e. cummings
the painter
Self-portrait
with sketchpad,
1939, oil on
canvas,
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Oil City High School
(demolished in 1967)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “in Just-”
in Justspring
when the world is mudluscious the little lame baloonman
whistles
far
and wee
and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old baloonman whistles
far
and
wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “in Just-”
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
baloonMan
far
and
wee
whistle
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “next to of course god america”
"next to of course god america I
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “next to of course god america”
Oil City High School Rotarians,
1966-1967
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Boosterism
cummings, “Buffalo Bill’s”
Buffalo Bill 's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death?
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “the Cambridge ladies”
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,
are invariably interested in so many thingsat the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “she being Brand”
she being Brand
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having
thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.
K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her
up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and
again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing (my
lev-er Rightoh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
grasedlightning
cummings, “she being Brand”
just as we turned the corner of Divinity
avenue i touched the accelerator and give
her the juice,good
(it
was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on
the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and
brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.
stand;Still)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
Necker’s Cube
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
Gestalt Shift
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “somewhere I have never travelled”
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
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 easily will 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;
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “somewhere I have never travelled”
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
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “I thank You God”
i thank You God for most this amazing
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 love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “O sweet spontaneous”
O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the doting
fingers of
prurient philosophies pinched
and poked
thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy
knees squeezing and
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry
cummings, “O sweet spontaneous”
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring
ENGL 3370: Modern American Poetry