Was ee cummings just a bullshit artist?

[Bouncy Ball]

Do you think he just said "lemme see how crazy I can get with this and still have people go 'ooooo, ART!'" or do you think he was sincere and actually shunned quite a bit by the critics?

a total stranger one black day
knocked living the hell out of me--

who found forgiveness hard because
my(as it happened)self he was

-but now that fiend and i are such
immortal friends the other's each


(There were some comments on this poem on one website. I think a freeper got it into his head to read some poetry, because he posted "Ha ha he beat himself up so sad!")


(Btw, his romantic poems are like electricity. Check them out.)

[southpaw]

1. Not at all... I love cummings.

this is my favorite... and rather appropriate these days, no?

"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

[progmom]

2. i don't think he's a bullshit artist

I'd be pretty bummed if that was the case, as I truly enjoy some of his poetry.

[Bouncy Ball]

3. We agree!!!

The reason I said that is I knew a fellow English major who said that about him and I nearly came unglued.

[redqueen]

4. Whew!

I was worried there for a moment.

[Bouncy Ball]

5. Hmmm.

(By the way, he was born in Cambridge, MA to very liberal parents. His dad taught at Harvard before becoming a Unitarian minister and cummings attended Harvard himself.)

Jehovah buried,Satan dead,
do fearers worship Much and Quick;
badness not being felt as bad,
itself thinks goodness what is meek;
obey says toc,submit says tic,
Eternity's a Five Year Plan:
if Joy with Pain shall hand in hock
who dares to call himself a man?

go dreamless knaves on Shadows fed,
your Harry's Tom,your Tom is Dick;
while Gadgets murder squack and add,
the cult of Same is all the chic;
by instruments,both span and spic,
are justly measured Spic and Span:
to kiss the mike if Jew turn kike
who dares to call himself a man?

loudly for Truth have liars pled,click;
where Boobs are holy,poets mad,
illustrious punks of Progress shriek;
when Souls are outlawed,Hearts are sick,
Hearts being sick,Minds nothing can:
if Hate's a game and Love's a fuck
who dares to call himself a man?

King Christ,this world is all aleak;
and lifepreservers there are none:
and waves which only He may walk
Who dares to call Himself a man.

[flamingyouth]

6. I'm a huge fan of his

Probably one of my top three favorite poets.

[Bouncy Ball]

11. Really???? (Did I squeal a bit just then???)

Oh another fan!!!! It's hard to find fans of his, you know.

I did a poem of his in calligraphy, framed it and gave it to my husband and it sits on his nightstand. It's this one:

i carry your heart with me(i carry 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 it's 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 a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

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

[Bouncy Ball]

7. I never appreciated his work when I was in high school.

I'd read it and think "Um, yeah WHATEVER." Now I love it.

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

[WindRavenX]

8. although I'm not a fan of ee cummings...

...in no way is he a "bullshit" artist. I simply do not enjoy his style- but he was very talented.

[sniffa]

9. was g.g. aLLin a shit artist?

oops!

[progmom]

12. oh you naughty sniffa!

[Willy Lee]

10. such a sun and such a moon

i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes

He is one of my favorites. Above is one of the few poems I have committed to memory.

[Bouncy Ball]

13. I don't know what poem of his this is from

but I loved these lines:

then lean back in my arms laughing
for life I think is no paragraph
and death no parenthesis

Something like that--I think I have it wrong. I'm trying to find it now. It's the last few lines of one of his poems, but I can't seem to locate it.

[bpcmxr]

15. Here you go.

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

[Bouncy Ball]

16. Ooooooooo

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

That was the FIRST ee cummings poem I felt like I understood and really "got" on an emotional level. I read it my freshman year in college, and used to have it memorized. When I was alone, I'd just recite it to hear the words.

[Bouncy Ball]

14. Does this fit how you feel about today's political and social climate?

(I left off the last paragraph because you can only post four...)

now does our world descend
the path to nothingness
(cruel now cancels kind;
friends turn to enemies)
therefore lament,my dream
and don a doer's doom

create is now contrive;
imagined,merely know
(freedom:what makes a slave)
therefore,my life,lie down
and more by most endure
all that you never were

hide,poor dishonoured mind
who thought yourself so wise;
and much could understand
concerning no and yes:
if they've become the same
it's time you unbecame

where climbing was and bright
is darkness and to fall
(now wrong's the only right
since brave are cowards all)
therefore despair,my heart
and die into the dirt

[Lexingtonian]

24. how 'bout old Olaf?

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelove'd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds, without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaslessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

[bpcmxr]

17. Another favorite of mine, short and sweet:

i shall imagine life
is not worth dying,if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose,roses(you feel
certain)will only smile

[Richardo]

18. If so, what does that make Andy Kaufman?

(BTW, I like his work. It's some of the very little poetry that I 'get'.)

[bpcmxr]

19. One more, a bit of fun from old edward estlin:

mr youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

[NewYorkerfromMass]

20. no more than William Carlos Williams

or Wallace Stevens or any of the great poets...

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

The Red Wheelbarrow - William Carlos Williams

[barb162]

21. I like him a bit, he's okayish

[Schema Thing]

22. He plays with his words like I play with my food!

Take that as you will, but more than one grown woman has cried while watching me play with my food.

[Bridget Burke]

23. Not at all.

But that doesn't excuse "regular people" from learning how tu use Upper & Lower case!

[Squeech]

25. Veteran

He drove an ambulance truck in WWI, and saw a lot of carnage first hand. He wrote a book about the experience (which I thumbed thru but never sat down to read). It made him a confirmed peacenik.

Also there used to be a band in Boston called Men & Volts, who did a brilliant song setting of cummings' "She Being Brand." (This is the poem that compares making love to a woman for the first time to driving a new car. Curious how they didn't give us this one to read in high school; instead we did "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town" and "In Just-Spring.")

I used to love his stuff just because the pseudo-random typography drove grownups crazy. But there's substance in there too.