E. E. Cummings

thumb|life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14 1894 – September 3 1962), commonly known as e e cummings or E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. Quotes The typography of some of these quotes may seem incorrect: it probably isn't. Outside of some bolding for emphasis of well noted or notable statements, and a few marks of ellipsis "..." for gaps, Cummings' often-odd original typography has been retained, so much as possible, in many of the quotes, including where punctuation marks between words are often used without any spaces. So, ungentle reader, (as you and I value what we should ashamed—after witnessing a few minor circus-marvels—to call our "lives,") let us never be fooled into taking seriously that perfectly superficial distinction which is vulgarly drawn between the circus-show and "art" or "the arts." Let us not forget that every authentic "work of art" is in and of itself alive and that, however "the arts" may differ among themselves, their common function is the expression of that supreme alive-ness which is known as "beauty." This being so, our three ring circus is art—for to contend that the spectacle in question is not an authentic manifestation of "beauty" is as childish, as to dismiss the circus on the ground that it is "childish," is idiotic. "The Adult, the Artist and the Circus" in Vanity Fair (October 1925) My theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. "Would you hit a woman with a child?— No, I'd hit her with a brick." Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement. EIMI (1933) open your thighs to fate and(if you canwithholding nothing)World, conceive a man no thanks (1935), 37 Simple people, people who don't exist, prefer things which don't exist,simple things. "Good" and "bad" are simple things. You bomb me = "bad." I bomb you = "good." Simple people(who,incidentally,run this socalled world)know this(they know everything)whereas complex people—people who feel something—are very,very ignorant and really don't know anything. "Foreword to an Exhibit: I" (1944) Very luckily for you and me,the uncivilized sun mysteriously shines on "good" and "bad" alike. He is an artist. "Foreword to an Exhibit: I" (1944) thumb|right|Art is a mystery. A mystery is something immeasurable. Art is a mystery. A mystery is something immeasurable.In so far as every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery of every man and woman and child. In so far as a human being is an artist, skies and mountains and oceans and thunderbolts and butterflies are immeasurable; and art is every mystery of nature. Nothing measurable can be alive; nothing which is not alive can be art; nothing which cannot be art is true: and everything untrue doesn't matter a very good God damn... "Foreword to an Exhibit: I" (1944) Why do you paint? For exactly the same reason I breathe. That's not an answer. There isn't any answer. How long hasn't there been any answer? As long as I can remember. And how long have you written? As long as I can remember. I mean poetry. So do I. "Forward to an Exhibit: II" (1945) Your poems are rather hard to understand, whereas your paintings are so easy. Easy? Of course—you paint flowers and girls and sunsets; things that everybody understands. I never met him. Who? Everybody. Did you ever hear of nonrepresentational painting? I am. Pardon me? I am a painter, and painting is nonrepresentational. Not all painting. No: housepainting is representational. And what does a housepainter represent? Ten dollars an hour. In other words, you don't want to be serious— It takes two to be serious. "Forward to an Exhibit: II" (1945) when you confuse art with propaganda,you confuse an act of God with something which can be turned on and off like the hot water faucet. If "God" means nothing to you(or less than nothing)I'll cheerfully substitute one of your own favorite words,"freedom". You confuse freedom—the only freedom—with absolute tyranny... all over this socalled world,hundreds of millions of servile and insolent inhuman unbeings are busily unrolling in the enlightenment of propaganda. Essay in Oscar Williams (ed.) The War Poets (1945), p. 12 There are still a few erect human beings in the socalled world. Proudly and humbly,I say to these human beings: "O my fellow citizens,many an honest man believes a lie. Though you are as honest as the day, fear and hate the liar. Fear and hate him when he should be feared and hated:now. Fear and hate him were he should be feared and hated:in yourselves. "Do not hate and fear the artist in yourselves,my fellow citizens. Honour him and love him. Love him truly— do not try to possess him. Trust him as nobly as you trust tomorrow. "Only the artist in yourselves is more truthful than the night." Essay in Oscar Williams (ed.) The War Poets (1945), pp. 12–13 Life,for eternal us,is now Introduction to Poems 1924-1954 (1954) love is the voice under all silences,the hope which has no opposite in fear;the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:the truth more first than sun, more last than star "being to timelessness as it's to time" in TLS (1954) and in 95 Poems (1958) milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were;and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone for whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea "maggie and milly and molly and may", New Poems (1957), p. 38 that strictly(and how)scientific land of supernodwhere freedom is compulsoryand only man is god. "of all the blessings which to man", Complete Poems II (1968), p. 544 Tulips and Chimneys (1923) thumb|how do you like your blueeyed boyMister Death while in an earthless hour my fondsoul seriously yearns beyondthis fern of sunset frond on frondopening in a rareSlowness of gloried air... "Songs: II" All in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn. "Songs: IV" it'sspringwhen the world is puddle-wonderful "Chansons Innocentes: I" ["In-just-"] Buffalo Bill'sdefunctwho used toride a watersmooth-silverstallionand break onetwothreefourfive pigeons—justlikethatJesushe was a handsome manand what i want to know ishow do you like your blueeyed boyMister Death "Portraits: VIII" the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished soulsare unbeautiful and have comfortable minds "Sonnets—Realities: I" XLI Poems (1925) this is the garden: colours come and go,frail azures fluttering from night’s outer wingstrong silent greens serenely lingering,absolute lights like baths of golden snow. "Sonnets: IV"    amongthe slow deep trees perpetual of sleepsome silver-fingered fountain steals the world. "Sonnets: IV" when the proficient poison sure sleepbereaves us of our slow tranquillitiesand He without Whose favour nothing is(being of men called Love) upward doth leapfrom the mute hugeness of depriving deep,with thunder of those hungering wings of His,into the lucent and large signories—i shall not smile beloved;i shall not weep "Sonnets: VI" & (1925) i like my body when it is with yourbody. It is so quite new a thing.Muscles better and nerves more.i like your body. i like what it does,i like its hows. "Sonnets—Realities: VIII" who knows if the moon'sa balloon, coming out of a keen cityin the sky—filled with pretty people? "&:Seven Poems: VII" Quoted as epigraph by David Niven, The Moon's a Balloon (1971) is 5 (1926) thumb|right|wholly to be a foolwhile Spring is in the worldmy blood approves There are certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them. Things of this sort — things which are always inside of us and in fact are us and which consequently will not be pushed off or away where we can begin thinking about them — are no longer things; they, and the us which they are, equals A Verb; an IS. Foreword a man who had fallen among thieves lay by the roadside on his back dressed in fifteenthrate ideas wearing a round jeer for a hat "One: XXVIII" "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 voices of liberty be mute?" He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water "Two: III" wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are a better fate than wisdom "Four: VII" life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis "Four: VII" lady through whose profound and fragile lipsthe sweet small clumsy feet of April cameinto the ragged meadow of my soul. "Five: V" Him (1927) Here life is, moves; faintly. A wrist. The faint throb of blood, precise, miraculous... And they talk of dying! The blood delicately descending and ascending: making an arm. Being an arm. The warm flesh, the dim slender flesh filled with life, slenderer than a miracle, frailer... These are the shoulders through which fell the world. The dangerous shoulders of Eve, in god's entire garden newly strolling. A distinct throat. Which breathes. A head: small, smaller than a flower. With eyes and with lips. Lips more slender than light; a smile how carefully and slowly made, a smile made entirely of dream. Eyes deeper than Spring. Eyes darker than Spring, more new... These, these are the further miracles... the breasts. Thighs. The All which is beyond comprehension — the All which is perpetually discovered, yet undiscovered: sexual, sweet, Alive! It may take two people to make a really beautiful mistake W [ViVa] (1931) the only man woman or child who wrotea simple declarative sentence with seven grammaticalerrors "is dead"beautiful Warren Gamaliel Harding"is" deadhe's"dead" XVII somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyondany experience, your eyes have their silence.in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose methough i have closed myself as fingers,you always open petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if it be your wish to close me, i andmy life will shut very beautifully, suddenlyas the heart of this flower imaginesthe snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing we are to perceive in this world equalsthe power of your intense fragility: whose texturecompels me with the colour of its countriesrendering death and forever with each breathing LVII (i do not know what it is about you that closesand opens;only something in me understandsthe voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands LVII Collected Poems (1938) Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question. Introduction I'd rather learn from one bird how to singthan teach ten thousand stars how not to dance "New Poems: 22" King Christ, this world is all aleak;and lifepreservers there are none:and waves which only He may walkWho dares to call Himself a man. "New Poems: 54" 50 Poems (1940) thumb|right|ye!the godless are the dull and the dull are the damned thumb|love is the every only god ye!the godless are the dull and the dull are the damned 13 anyone lived in a pretty how town(with up so floating many bells down)spring summer autumn winterhe sang his didn’t he danced his did. 29 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 34 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 34 love is the every only god 38 love is more thicker than forget...it is more sane and sunly and more it cannot diethan all the sky which only is higher than the sky 42 measureless our pure living complete love whose doom is beauty and its fate to grow 50 on forever's very now we stand 50 1 x 1 (1944) Also known as One Times One thumb|right|no sunbeam ever lies a politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man X plato told him:he couldn't believe it(jesustold him;he wouldn't believeitlaotsze certainly told him,and general(yes mam) sherman; and even(believe itor not)you told him:i told him;we told him(he didn't believe it,no sir) XIII pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness XIV We doctors know a hopeless case if — listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go XIV —when skies are hanged and oceans drowned, the single secret will still be man XX what if a dawn of a doom of a dream bites this universe in two, peels forever out of it's grave and sprinkles nowhere with me and you? XX when god decided to inventeverything he took onebreath bigger than a circustentand everything beganwhen man determined to destroyhimself he picked the wasof shall and finding only whysmashed it into because XXVI no sunbeam ever lies XXX true wars are never won XXX 'and liars kill their kind but' her,my 'love creates love only' our XXXII nothing false and possible is love (who's imagined, therefore limitless) love's to giving as to keeping's give; as yes is to if, love is to yes XXXIV true lovers in each happening of their hearts live longer than all which and every who XXXVI yes is a pleasant country... love is a deeper season than reason XXXVIII —tommorrow is our permanent address and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do, we'll move away still further:into now XXXIX all ignorance toboggans into knowand trudges up to ignorance again XXXIX nothing except the impossible shall occur XLII A Foreword to Krazy (1946) Foreword to a collection of Krazy Kat comic strips (1946); republished in A Miscellany Revised (1965) 244px|thumb|right|What concerns me fundamentaly is a meteoric burlesk melodrama, born of the immemorial adage love will find a way. 244px|thumb|right|The sensical law of this world is might makes right; the nonsensical law of our heroine is love conquers all. What concerns me fundamentaly is a meteoric burlesk melodrama, born of the immemorial adage love will find a way. A humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature (slightly resembling a child's drawing of a cat, but gifted with the secret grace and obvious clumsiness of a penguin on terra firma) who is never so happy as when egoist-mouse, thwarting altruist-dog, hits her in the head with a brick. Dog hates mouse and worships "cat", mouse despises "cat" and hates dog, "cat" hates no one and loves mouse. If you're a twofisted, spineless progressive (a mighty fashionable stance nowadays) Offissa Pupp, who forcefully asserts the will of socalled society, becomes a cosmic angel; while Ignatz Mouse, who forcefully defies society's socalled will by asserting his authentic own, becomes a demon of anarchy and a fiend of chaos. But if—whisper it—you're a 100% hidebound reactionary, the foot's in the other shoe. Ignatz Mouse then stands forth as a hero, pluckily struggling to keep the flag of free will flying; while Offissa Pupp assumes the monstrous mien of a Goliath, satanically bullying a tiny but indomitable David. Well, let's flip the coin—so: and lo! Offissa Pupp comes up. That makes Ignatz Mouse "tails." Now we have a hero whose heart has gone to his head and a villain whose head has gone to his heart. This hero and villain no more understand Krazy Kat than the mythical denizens of a two dimensional realm understand some three dimensional intruder. The world of Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse is a knowledgeable power-world, in terms of which our unknowledgeable heroine is powerlessness personified. The sensical law of this world is might makes right; the nonsensical law of our heroine is love conquers all. To put the oak in the acorn: Ignatz Mouse and Offissa Pupp (each completely convinced that his own particular brand of might makes right) are simple-minded—Krazy isn't—therefore, to Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse, Krazy is. But if both our hero and our villain don't and can't understand our heroine, each of them can and each of them does misunderstand her differently. To our softhearted altruist, she is the adorably helpless incarnation of saintliness. To our hardhearted egoist, she is the puzzlingly indestructible embodiment of idiocy. The benevolent overdog sees her as an inspired weakling. The malevolent undermouse views her as a born target. Meanwhile Krazy Kat, through this double misunderstanding, fulfills her joyous destiny. XAIPE (1950) thumb|i thank You God for most this amazing day out of the mountain of his soul comes a keen pure silence 19 blossoming are people... all the earth has turned to sky ...and i am you are i am we 32 i feel that(false and true are merely to know) Love only has ever been,is,and will ever be,So 33 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 65 — This poem was used by Eric Whitacre for an a capella SATB chorus titled "i thank you God". i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth 65 how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any — lifted from the no of all nothing — human merely being doubt unimaginable You? 65 now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened 65 —the great my darling happens to be that love are in we, that love are in we 66 completely dare be beautiful 68 more each particular person is(my love) alive than every world can understand and now you are and i am now and we're a mystery that will never happen again, a miracle which has never happened before— and shining this our now must come to then 69 i: six nonlectures (1953) thumb|poetry is being, not doing poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality....poetry is being, not doing....if poetry is your goal, you've got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about selfstyled obligations and duties and responsibilities "i & their son: Nonlecture Two" The one...thing which mattered about any poem (so ran my second poetic period's credo) was what the poem said; it's socalled meaning ... Thus it will be seen that, by the year 1900, one growing American boy had reached exactly that stage of "intellectual development" beyond which every ungrowing Marxist adult of today is strictly forbidden ... ever to pass. "i & you & is: Nonlecture Four" Writing, I feel, is an art; and artists, I feel, are human beings. As a human being stands, so a human being is: not that some human beings aren't acrobats, while others—but why anticipate Him and Santa Claus? "i & you & is: Nonlecture Four" concerning this selfstyled world's greatest and most generous literary figure: who had just arrived in our nation's capitol, attired in half a GI uniform and ready to be hanged as a traitor by the only country which ever made even a pretense of fighting for freedom of speech Re Ezra Pound — poetry happens to be an art;and artists happen to be human beings. "Re Ezra Pound" An artist doesn't live in some geographical abstraction,superimposed on a part of this beautiful earth by the nonimagination of unanimals and dedicated to the proposition that massacre is a social virtue because murder is an individual vice. Nor does an artist live in some soi-disant world,nor does he live in some so-called universe,nor does he live in any number of "worlds" or in any number of "universes." As for a few trifling delusions like the "past" and "present" and "future" of quote mankind unquote,they may be big enough for a couple of billion supermechanized submorons but they're much too small for one human being. "Re Ezra Pound" Every artist's strictly illimitable country is himself.An artist who plays that country false has committed suicide;and even a good lawyer cannot kill the dead. But a human being who's true to himself — whoever himself may be — is immortal;and all the atomic bombs of all the antiartists in spacetime will never civilize immortality. "Re Ezra Pound" 95 poems (1958) the courage to receive time's mightiest dream 3 no evil is so worse than worst you fall in hate with love —human one mortally immortal i can turn immense all time's because to why 7 though mankind persuades itself that every weed's a rose,roses(you feel certain) will only smile 72 seeming's enough for slaves of space and time —ours is the now and here of freedom. Come 73 Time's a strange fellow; more he gives than takes (and he takes all) 78 a million thousand hundred nothings seem —we are himself's own self;his very him 84 exists no miracle mightier than this:to feel 89 dreamtree,truthtreetree of jubilee:with aeons of (trivialmerely)existence,allwhen may not measurea now of your treasure 90 each ignorant gladness —unteaches what despair preaches 90 unlove's the heavenless hell and the homeless home 91 lovers alone wear sunlight 91 The whole truth... sings only —and all lovers are the song 91 it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you 92 A Poet's Advice to Students (1958) In George James Firmage (ed.) E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany (1958), p. 13 Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel...the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time — and whenever we do it, we are not poets. my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world — unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die. Does this sound dismal? It isn't. It's the most wonderful life on earth. Or so I feel. 73 poems (1963) seeker of truth follow no path all paths lead where truth is here 3 it's love by whom (my beautiful friend) the gift to live is without until: ...love was and shall be this only truth (a dream of a deed, born not to die) 4 it's so damn sweet when Anybody— ...makes you feel ...for once (imag -ine) You 7 because it's Spring thingS dare to do people 10 a great man is gone.Tall as the truth was who; and wore his ... life like a ... sky. 14 they flock and they flee through the thunder of seem though the stars in their silence say Be 29 the cunning the craven ... they live for until though the sun in his heaven says Now 29 they work and they pray and they bow to a must though the earth in her splendor says May 29 without any doubt he was whatever(first and last) most people fear most: a mystery for which iv'e no word except alive 30 Mostpeople have been heard screaming for international measures that render hell rational —i thank heaven somebody's crazy enough to give me a daisy 30 we sans love equals mob 31 unbeingdead isn't beingalive 31 all which isn't singing is mere talking ... and all talking's to oneself alone but the very song of(as mountains feel and lovers)singing is silence 32 hugest whole creation may be less incalculable than a single kiss 37 now I lay me down to dream of(nothing i or any somebody or you can begin to begin to imagine) something which nobody may keep. 44 'the axis of the universe —love 73 Quotes about Cummings E. E. Cummings is not a writer; he is just a phase that other writers go through. John Riddell (Corey Ford), Vanity Fair, November 1927, p. 102 cummings was doing the same thing: getting into words, rolling around in them. As a child, I used to charm myself with words. Audre Lorde, 1978 interview, in Conversations with Audre Lorde (2004) I admire E.E. Cummings's musicality, less for his visual-only poems, not at all for his occasional anti-Semitism. Marge Piercy interview in My Life, My Body'' (2015) External links Author:Edward Estlin Cummings E. E. Cummings E. E. Cummings at Modern American Poetry Commentary by Cummings E. E. Cummings at the Academy of American Poets e. e. cummings at American Poems NOT "e. e. cummings" Category:1894 births Category:1962 deaths Category:Essayists from the United States Category:Playwrights from the United States Category:Painters from the United States Category:Unitarians from the United States Category:Anti-communists from the United States Category:Poets from Boston Category:Formalist poets