by hazlit on April 6th, 2008

hazlit

Question

Help answer this question below.

Over a year ago someone asked a question about e.e. cummings poetry & got just ONE response : ( Are there any e.e. cummings fans here? If so, why do you like his work? It would be great if you could post your favourite!

  • Like
  • Report

Answers. 12 helpful answers below.

  • by hijklmno on April 7th, 2008

    hijklmno

    Not a big fan... I think he appealed to me as a teenager (hey! rebellious and look at the way those words are thrown over the page!) but now, looking past the surface, I only see the occasional phrase I like. ("With up so floating many bells down")

    But there are some full poems I like. "in Just-" being a good example - it's anthologised so much for a good reason.

    Also, I remember liking, and being confused by, "Buffalo Bill's / defunct" when I read it aged about 8. Partly responsible for starting my love affair with poetry.

    • Like
    • Report

    2 comments | Post one | Permalink

  • by Mr. Meaulnes on April 6th, 2008

    Mr. Meaulnes

    Cummings isn't alone, poetry in general is pretty underappreciated.

    Myself, I just started reading e.e. Cummings in particular a little over a month ago, so I don't really have a well established favourite yet, but of what I've read, I must admit a certain avid fondness for 'the boys i mean are not refined'


    "the boys i mean are not refined
    they go with girls who buck and bite
    they do not give a fuck for luck
    they hump them thirteen times a night

    one hangs a hat upon her tit
    one carves a cross on her behind
    they do not give a shit for wit
    the boys i mean are not refined

    they come with girls who bite and buck
    who cannot read and cannot write
    who laugh like they would fall apart
    and masturbate with dynamite

    the boys i mean are not refined
    they cannot chat of that and this
    they do not give a fart for art
    they kill like you would take a piss

    they speak whatever's on their mind
    they do whatever's in their pants
    the boys i mean are not refined
    they shake the mountains when they dance"

    • Like
    • Report

    6 comments | Post one | Permalink

  • by Cantras on April 6th, 2008

    Cantras

    Not necessarily a bash to him, but I do wonder whether he'd have gotten famous if he hadn't decided "capitalisation rules are for sissies" and made up his own.

    As a grammar person, I also wonder whether he first started this trend of "it doesnt matter if u no wat im saying y do i have to rite it out"

    • Like
    • Report

    4 comments | Post one | Permalink

  • by Sixty B - Commander Topcoat on April 18th, 2008

    Sixty B - Commander Topcoat

    ee cummings is my favorite poet. I love his innovations, his intensity, and his ability to break through barriers of the English language simply by turning punctuation on its head. This is probably my favorite:

    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

    • Like
    • Report

    3 comments | Post one | Permalink

  • by Babe5612 on April 9th, 2008

    Babe5612

    I've read all the answers given to your question, its amazing how different people interpret the same poem. I enjoy e.e. cummings for all the reasons most do not,the sheer unconventional (ness) of it.
    heres My Favorite.


    I carry your heart with me
    (Icarry it in my heart) I am never without it
    (anywhere I go you go, my dear;and whatever is done by only
    me is your doing, my darling)
    I fear no fate for you are my fate, my sweet
    I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
    And its you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

    Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
    (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of the tree called life; which grows higher than a soul can hope or a mind can hide)
    And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

    I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

    • Like
    • Report

    1 comment | Post one | Permalink

  • by accordiongirl on April 8th, 2008

    accordiongirl

    I love cummings becuase i just think what he writes is beautiful, it is like music not words. Here is another one i love....

    ********************************

    there are so many tictoc
    clocks everywhere telling people
    what toctic time it is for
    tictic instance five toc minutes toc
    past six tic

    Spring is not regulated and does
    not get out of order nor do
    its hands a little jerking move
    over numbers slowly

    we do not
    wind it up it has no weights
    springs wheels inside of
    its slender self no indeed dear
    nothing of the kind.

    (So,when kiss Spring comes
    we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
    lips because tic clocks toc don't make
    a toctic difference
    to kisskiss you and to
    kiss me)

    **************************

    how can you not love that!!!

    • Like
    • Report

    1 comment | Post one | Permalink

  • by hazlit on April 6th, 2008

    hazlit

    In answer to my own question 8-) ...I've got lots of favourites but I thought I'd offer this one as a starter:

    "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 beaut-
    iful 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.

    e.e. cummings (1926)

    • Like
    • Report

    2 comments | Post one | Permalink

  • by Factotum on April 6th, 2009

    Factotum

    I agree with what has been said but I would add that I like him also because his poems are short yet thick.

    • Like
    • Report

    2 comments | Post one | Permalink

  • by learning 2 let go... on April 7th, 2008

    learning 2 let go...

    i love e.e. cummings because he kinda goes with what ever random things are on his mind, and u can see this in his poetry...it's very good because it all makes since once you've evolved to his way of thinking...without parameters...my favorite by him is

    pity this busy monster,manunkind... (XIV) by E. E. Cummings
    pity this busy monster,manunkind,

    not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
    your victum(death and life safely beyond)

    plays with the bigness of his littleness
    -electrons deify one razorblade
    into a mountainrange;lenses extend

    unwish through curving wherewhen until unwish
    returns on its unself.
    A world of made
    is not a world of born-pity poor flesh

    and trees,poor stars and stones,but never this
    fine specimen of hypermagical

    ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

    a hopeless case if-listen:there's a hell
    of a good universe next door;let's go

    - e. e. cummings

    • Like
    • Report

    1 comment | Post one | Permalink

  • by HasntBeen on April 6th, 2009

    HasntBeen

    i dont really read him much
    not for lack of interest
    its just that things pile up like leaves
    against a wall
    that sees too much wind

    and i cant find my way out
    of the pile

    so when compensating
    for lack of knowledge
    the real kind
    while called upon to answer
    what must be done

    done

    is to let the thoughts wander
    (which they always do anywho)
    and distach the brain from the fingers
    let the fingers do the walking

    • Like
    • Report

    4 comments | Post one | Permalink

  • by Basil_Fawlty on October 8th, 2009

    Basil_Fawlty

    From "is 5":

    in spite of everything
    which breathes and moves, since Doom
    (with white longest hands
    neatening each crease)
    will smooth entirely our minds

    --before leaving my room
    i turn, and(stooping
    through the morning)kiss
    this pillow, dear
    where our heads lived and were.

    No comments. Post one | Permalink

  • by haileyerin on June 7th, 2010

    haileyerin

    i love e.e. cummings. the sky was candy luminous is my favorite. im getting a tattoos of one of his poems but i cant decide which one. im leaning toward the sky was. does anyone have anythoughts on that poem?

    No comments. Post one | Permalink

Want to attach an image to your answer? Click here.

Did this answer your question? If not, then ask a new question or create a poll.

More Questions. Additional questions in this category.

You're reading Over a year ago someone asked a question about e.e. cummings poetry & got just ONE response : ( Are there any e.e. cummings fans here? If so, why do you like his work? It would be great if you could post your favourite!

Follow us on Facebook!

Related Ads

ANSWERBAG BUZZ

Ee cummings manunkind year written
Analysis pity this busy monster manunkind xiv
E e cummings carry your heart wall art
Ee cummings where our heads once
Ee cummings hey speak whatever s on their mind