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by Anonymous on February 5th, 2009
It's his way of protesting. He was a strong believer in equality and the rights of all people. He wanted to show that we are all equal not just as people but also in our names. Even to the point that every LETTER was equal, and that no letter should carry more weight than any other letter. Therefore, by having all letter lowercase and using no uppercase, he was demenstrating equality with no superiority.
by danielitox on May 4th, 2008
Because the "shift" didn't work in his computer ;)
by Sweet T on May 4th, 2008
Because he could see into the future, and knew text talk was coming and he didnt want people to yell out his poems, LOL.
by hijklmno on May 4th, 2008
Not in every poem... "Buffalo Bill's" for example has 5 capital letters in it.
And going through a couple of books of his poems I've got I see quite a few - but they hardly count as a lot. So, yes, in general he used lowercase letters (and little punctuation).
Why?
To be rebellious, perhaps? At the time he first started publishing poems in a significant way he was very much part of the Modernist movement and also trying to make a name for himself as a painter (a cubist, at that). The visual appearance of his early poems was very revolutionary.
Lack of uppercase also serves the purpose of diminishing proper nouns, ("plato" instead of "Plato", "america" instead of "America") to make them less grand than they might be.
Also, this element of his style means that when he *does* use upper case you know that it's for a special purpose. For example: "i thank You God for this most amazing". Our attention is drawn to that Y and G.
Also, he never used "e. e. cummings". He always wrote his name with upper case, and all of his official books use upper case in his name.
by Basil_Fawlty on October 15th, 2009
Perhaps the most startling example of cummings' use of a capital letter is in the line:
god gloats upon Her stunning flesh.
by Gnome of Kevonia is a Cheerwine junkie on October 15th, 2009
Probably because he just felt like it.
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