E. E. Cummings: Selected Poems

edited by Richard Kennedy #26

I wasn't going to write this up now since I just did a poetry book and I read this over a month ago and you know, it could wait. But Rosie O' Donnell and the Associated Press have forced my hand, those bastards! Here's the responsible quote, which is in reference to Rosie's new job:

"it will be hard 4 me 2 not b the boss," she wrote recently in a style reminiscent of the poet e.e. cummings.

A style reminiscent of a text-messaging 9 year old, maybe! This also brings up the other Cummings issue -- capitalization. What is wrong with people? It's almost a CURSE to have some sort of unique offering in this world! Look what happens -- Andy Warhol is reduced to soup cans and people mangling "famous for fifteen minutes," and Cummings is similarly reduced to flamewars about whether his name is capitalized (it is) and people thinking that any old random bit of free-floating punctuation on the page is in "the Cummings style."

That being said, I didn't really know too much about Cummings before I picked up this collection. I was familiar with a few of his more famous poems that appear in anthologies and had come across another that I really liked, so I was on low-level-keep-my-eyes-open alert for more. Which I found while browsing the poetry aisle at my local library. It seemed like a good place to start and I wasn't disappointed.

The book is divided into categories and chronologically within those categories: A Child's World; Sweet Spontaneous Earth; The Poetry of the Eye; Portraits; Love and Its Mysteries; Achieving the Togethercolored Instant; Kitty, Mimi, Marj and Friends; The Dimensions of Being Human; Myths and Allegories; Urban Glimpses; Targets of Satire; and Endings. There is biographical information included in the introduction to each section that helps with context (not that context is necessary, I just like it). The book also features many of his sketches, since he was an artist too.

Here's one I like (found in the Sweet Spontaneous Earth section) that is not too complicated to reproduce:

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