on e. e. cummings

You know an e. e. cummings poem when you see it. They're the weird ones, the ones that appear to be jumbles of letters and punctuation, or phenomes that don't seem to make up words. But you're curious, maybe, because surely there's a point to the poem? If it were just random, why would anyone bother?

So you go further than just reading the poem, and disgarding it as nonsensical. You decide you're going to decode it. Put those letters into some order. Figure out whatever it is those phenomes actually say, in that accent you can't understand.

Perhaps because you've got to put the effort in just to interpret one of these poems, I find them more satisfying than anyone else's. It's easier to go deep, because you can't just read it once, think, oh, that's pretty, and go on to the next poem. Maybe you have to have faith that they do actually mean something, initially, but it pays off. You know you're never going to get what's just glorified prose with Cummings.

It was in sixth form English for me, looking at these crazy poems with my friend and then deciding, hey, I'm going to figure out what this means. It was the grasshopper poem - I could've recited you the title back then in sixth form, because in translating that poem, I'd become enchanted. No war poetry for me, I was going to study e. e. cummings!

Of course, as the other poem I did was ygUDuh (these were the poems in the compilations my school had; at this point I couldn't find a volume of his work to purchase), I did end up doing war poetry, in a way. It was the paper I got the best mark for, because they were texts I was the most passionate about. And the very form of them meant I was always going to have something to write about.

My favourite poem doesn't require so much effort just to read; it's the one that begins 'anyone lived in a pretty how town' and I love the way it rolls off the tongue, the way it could be nonsense, but isn't, and the double meanings, and the images it puts in my mind. I love that poem. And yeah, it is nice to just be able to read it without having to interpret it, without being forced to nut it out. Not that that isn't good too - it's certainly easier to have the impetus to analyse a poem when it's hard to even read without taking notes.

Even the ones that I can just read to myself, to calm myself down, or simply to relish language the way he does, they have their value, and few other poems I find to be to rollicksome, and simply enjoyable. Edward Lear, maybe, gives me that. But I still don't love him the way I love e. e. cummings, where nothing is accidental and you know that your poet's actually saying something. There's nothing quite as good as that.