Here are some poems I've collected.

Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

     anyone lived in a pretty how town 
     (with up so floating many bells down) 
     spring summer autumn winter 
     he sang his didn't he danced his did 
     Women and men (both little and small) 
     cared for anyone not at all 
     they sowed their isn't they reaped their same 
     sun moon stars rain 

     children guessed (but only a few 
     and down they forgot as up they grew 
     autumn winter spring summer) 
     that noone loved him more by more 

     when by now and tree by leaf 
     she laughed his joy she cried his grief 
     bird by snow and stir by still 
     anyone's any was all to her 

     someones married their everyones 
     laughed their cryings and did their dance 
     (sleep wake hope and then) they 
     said their nevers they slept their dream 

     stars rain sun moon 
     (and only the snow can begin to explain 
     how children are apt to forget to remember 
     with up so floating many bells down) 

     one day anyone died i guess 
     (and noone stooped to kiss his face) 
     busy folk buried them side by side 
     little by little and was by was 

     all by all and deep by deep 
     and more by more they dream their sleep 
     noone and anyone earth by april 
     wish by spirit and if by yes. 

     Women and men (both dong and ding) 
     summer autumn winter spring 
     reaped their sowing and went their came 
     sun moon stars rain 

- e.e. cummings

Excerpts from e.e. cummings' works:

"The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for most people - it's no use trying to pretend that most people and ourselves are alike".

-from an introduction to a collection of his poems(Cummings 1994)

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

For he has the territory of harmonicas, the acres of flutes, the meadows of clarinets, the domain of violins. And God says: Why did they put you in prison? What did you do to the people? "I made them dance and they put me in prison."

I sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

...and nothing quite so least as truth
---i say though hate were why men breathe---
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have
one.  It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses

my father will be(deep like a rose
tall like a rose)

standing near my

(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my

                                 (suddenly in sunlight

he will bow,

& the whole garden will bow)

M       in a vicious world-to love virtue
A       in a craven world-to have courage
R       in a treacherous world-to prove loyal
I       in a wavering world-to stand firm

A       in a cruel world-to show mercy
N       in a biased world-to act justly
N       in a shameless world-to live nobly
E       in a hateful world-to forgive

M       in a venal world-to be honest
O       in a heartless world-to be human
O       in a killing world-to create
R       in a sick world-to be whole

E       in an epoch of UNself-to be ONEself

- e. e. cummings

Cumming links

• Fairy Tales, Illustrated (Ages 4-8)
• E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962
• The Enormous Room
• Selected Poems
• Tulips & Chimneys
• Dreams in the Mirror-A Biography of E.E. Cummings

[i thank You God for most this amazing]

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 unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e. e. cummings

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

-e. e. cummings

(carefully to
and from moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

-e.e. cummings>[since feeling is first]

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 far 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 laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

-e. e. cummings

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window

Here are some facts about Edward Estlin Cummings:
1894-1962
b. Cambridge, Mass. His lyrical verse, eccentric in typography and language, is included in such volumes as Tulips and Chimneys (1923), Is 5 (1926), and 95 Poems (1958). The Enormous Room (1922) is an exceptional prose account of his World War I internment in France.
Edward Estlin Cummings was a poet, playwright, prose writer, and painter whose vital transcendental vision found embodiment in a startling array of innovative artistic devices, where typography, punctuation, grammar, syntax, diction, imagery, and rhythm were often pushed to their limits.
After completing his B.A. and M.A. in English and classics at Harvard University by 1916, Cummings volunteered for the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France during World War I. He wrote letters back home criticizing the conduct of the war, and the nervous French censors had him arrested and sent (1917) to a detention center, where he remained for three months before being released. This harrowing prison-camp experience became the basis of his first published book, The Enormous Room (1922), one of the best American works to come out of that war.
Written as a journal of his prison stay, it is heightened by an already experimental prose style and a hatred of bureaucracy that could treat helpless and innocent civilians so cruelly. On his return from France to the United States, refusing his family's wish that he seek a commission, Cummings was drafted into the army until shortly after the 1918 Armistice. He depicts military life satirically in such poems as i sing of Olaf glad and big (1931).
Cummings's celebration of the individual, then, and of love and spring, was not simply sentimental, as has sometimes been claimed, for it was based on hard-won personal experience. It was also based on his transcendental vision, and it is this that provides the rationale for his artistic experimentalism. Regarding the invisible world of the spirit as dwelling within the visible world of matter, this vision sees matter as bodying forth spirit. To realize this, however, requires peeling the scales of habit from one's eyes, for society's routines tend to deaden one's insight into the organic aliveness of the world and all its creatures.
After the war, Cummings devoted himself entirely to his writing and painting, publishing 11 books of poems--with a posthumous volume appearing the year after his death. All are collected in Complete Poems 1913-1962 (1972). He also published a second antibureaucracy journal, this time of his journey to the Soviet Union, entitled Eimi (Greek for "I Am"), in 1933, as well as several plays--Him (1927), Anthropos: The Future of Art (1930; 1945), and Santa Claus: A Morality (1946)--and a scenario for a ballet called Tom (1935), based on Uncle Tom's Cabin. His lectures and essays are to be found in i: Six Nonlectures (1953) and E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany (1958; rev. ed., 1965). A group of stories for children entitled Fairy Tales appeared in 1965; and his Selected Letters was published in 1969.
Edward Estlin Cummings was a poet, playwright, prose writer, and painter whose vital transcendental vision found embodiment in a startling array of innovative artistic devices, where typography, punctuation, grammar, syntax, diction, imagery, and rhythm were often pushed to their limits.
After completing his B.A. and M.A. in English and classics at Harvard University by 1916, Cummings volunteered for the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France during World War I. He wrote letters back home criticizing the conduct of the war, and the nervous French censors had him arrested and sent (1917) to a detention center, where he remained for three months before being released. This harrowing prison-camp experience became the basis of his first published book, The Enormous Room (1922), one of the best American works to come out of that war.
Written as a journal of his prison stay, it is heightened by an already experimental prose style and a hatred of bureaucracy that could treat helpless and innocent civilians so cruelly. On his return from France to the United States, refusing his family's wish that he seek a commission, Cummings was drafted into the army until shortly after the 1918 Armistice. He depicts military life satirically in such poems as i sing of Olaf glad and big (1931).
Cummings's celebration of the individual, then, and of love and spring, was not simply sentimental, as has sometimes been claimed, for it was based on hard-won personal experience. It was also based on his transcendental vision, and it is this that provides the rationale for his artistic experimentalism. Regarding the invisible world of the spirit as dwelling within the visible world of matter, this vision sees matter as bodying forth spirit. To realize this, however, requires peeling the scales of habit from one's eyes, for society's routines tend to deaden one's insight into the organic aliveness of the world and all its creatures.
After the war, Cummings devoted himself entirely to his writing and painting, publishing 11 books of poems--with a posthumous volume appearing the year after his death. All are collected in Complete Poems 1913-1962 (1972). He also published a second antibureaucracy journal, this time of his journey to the Soviet Union, entitled Eimi (Greek for "I Am"), in 1933, as well as several plays--Him (1927), Anthropos: The Future of Art (1930; 1945), and Santa Claus: A Morality (1946)--and a scenario for a ballet called Tom (1935), based on Uncle Tom's Cabin. His lectures and essays are to be found in i: Six Nonlectures (1953) and E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany (1958; rev. ed., 1965). A group of stories for children entitled Fairy Tales appeared in 1965; and his Selected Letters was published in 1969. (from an encyclopedia)

Back
Return to Main Page