Monday, June 29, 2009

E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 14, 1894. He began writing poems as early as 1904 and studied Latin and Greek at the Cambridge Latin High School. He received his B.A. in 1915 and his M.A. in 1916, both from Harvard.

He is a American poet and painter who first attracted attention for his eccentric punctuation, but the commonly held belief that E.E. Cummings had his name legally changed to lowercase letters is erroneous – preferred to capitalize the initials of his name on book covers and in other material. Despite typographical eccentricity and devotion to the avant-garde, Cummings's themes are in many respect quite traditional. He often dealt with the antagonism between an individual and masses, but his style brought into his poems lightness and satirical tones. As an artist Cummings painted still-life pictures and landscapes to a professional level.

In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. Later in his career, he was often criticized for settling into his signature style and not pressing his work towards further evolution. Nevertheless, he attained great popularity, especially among young readers, for the simplicity of his language, his playful mode and his attention to subjects such as war and sex.

I chose this poet because I knew some famous poems made by him. I wanted to research more on him on the Internet. This is what I have got.

This poet is known for his distinctly grammarless and structureless style speaks to what most of the human race may say is a society’s undeniable tendency toward unity structure, rules and regulations.

“To be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” - E.E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day)and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,andmilly befriended a stranded starwhose rays five languid fingers were;and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:andmay 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

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 nearyour slightest look easily will unclose methough i have closed myself as fingers,you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first roseor if your wish be to close me, i andmy life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,as when the heart of this flower imaginesthe snow carefully everywhere descending;nothing which we are to perceive in this world equalsthe power of your intense fragility:whose texturecompels me with the color of its countries,rendering death and forever with each breathing(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

Spring is like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere)arranging a window,into which people look(while people starearranging and changing placing carefully there a strange thing and a known thing here)andchanging everything carefullyspring is like a perhaps Hand in a window (carefully to and fro moving New and Old things,while people stare carefully moving a perhaps fraction of flower here placing an inch of air there)andwithout breaking anything.

http://www.google.com.sg/search?hl=en&q=interview+with+Edward+Estlin+Cummings&meta=&aq=f&oq=