E. E. Cummings

E. E. Cummings created his distinct and iconic poetic style–also called as “a form of literary cubism” (p. 1859)–through the manipulation of typical English writing rules, such as punctuation, grammar, and diction. The introduction to E. E. Cummings in our Heath Anthology describes how he wrote about simplicity, nature, and uniqueness, while opposing conformity, groupness, and artificiality. Just his poetry style speaks to this, but the content, chopped and skewed, looks to the beauty of individuality and the ugliness of the mundane. His poem “my sweet old etcetera” (p. 1862) encapsulates this idea of the dullness of being average or conforming. Throughout the poem, “etcetera” is scattered through, interrupting the thoughts and descriptions of the the speaker’s family members. He says “my / mother hoped that / i would die etcetera / bravely of course” (l. 12-16) and his father talked “about how it was / a privilege and if only he could meanwhile my / self etcetera lay quietly” (l. 17-20). Not much context is given in the poem, but there is a war going on and it seems as if everyone in the speaker’s family is involved in some way in supporting the war in some way. The speaker seems disinterested in falling into their same beliefs, exemplified by the way he describes his parents talking to him, as if they are giving him a boring lecture. He does not care for the honor or privilege of fighting for his country and becomes lost in the dreamlike and empty “etceteras.” He never completes a full thought and instead wonders around, trying to avoid becoming the generic soldier his family wants him to be.

I particularly enjoy the way E. E. Cummings plays with words, describing ideas in ways that we never think about, but somehow make sense in his poetry. I like his use of the word “manunkind” that embodies the cruelty he’s seen in people. It is one of his later poems and has a much darker tone to it. In the end, the speaker suggests abandoning this universe for a better one somehow, which emphasizes the hopelessness of recovery in this universe, that manunkind has ruined. I’m more of a fan of the earlier work that possesses a lighter, more playful tone. My favorite poem from this reading was “the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls” (p. 1861), which I hesitatingly call a sonnet (since it has 14 lines, though it is still free verse). The descriptions were especially interesting and bizarre to me. Part of the difficulty of reading poetry is trying to understand everything, but there is more merit in understanding just enough and the feelings that the writing evokes. This poem stars with a description of the women: “the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls / are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds” (l. 1-2). At first, the word “unbeautiful” stands out as if the speaker is insulting the Cambridge ladies, as if they were once beautiful and now are not. But despite this description of their appearance, the have “furnished souls” and “comfortable minds,” as if they are unbothered by superficial values and are fulfilled in other ways. While they are curious women, they are uninterested in the “scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D” (l. 10), characters and persons so generic, this could describe anyone. Their minds can stay comfortable and clean because they do not concern themselves with the petty gossip of the crowd. The best lines are at the end, describing Cambridge “in its box of / sky lavender and cornerless,the / moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy” (l. 12-14). The sky is this paradoxical cornerless box with the moon, a fragment of angry candy. The tone of these last few lines is lost on me, but I love their poetic vividness. Something about the paradox reminds me of how those concerned with artificial social affairs restrict themselves to a more sheltered experience (which the angry rattling moon scorns?), while the Cambridge women experience the limitlessness of the world.