A Poet I Admire

The famous poet I chose is E.E. Cummings. I chose to write about him because as soon as I saw this assignment that I have to do, the first poet who came to my mind was E.E. Cummings. His poems are famous for the abandonment of uppercase letters. He wrote his famous poem, "in Just-" as he loved his childhood in Cambridge so much that he was inspired to write it. Cummings began his new era of poetry by paying tribute to his father's memory in his poem, "my father moved through dooms of love" after his father's death. Instead of this poem being a somber funeral drone, it is rather, a celebration of the life and love that his father brought to Cummings' life and poetry. While making notes about his father, Cummings wrote, "He was the handsomest man I ever saw. Big was my father and strong with light-blue skies for eyes." Apart from these, after his mother suffered a stroke and died a couple of weeks later after being put into a coma, one of Cummings' poems was read at his mother's funeral service, "if there are any heavens.". From this poem, it could clearly be seen that E.E. Cummings loved his parents a lot and had a sense of closure knowing that with his mother's death, his parents could finally be together again. Next, I will be talking more about him regarding his life and his works.

Cummings attended Harvard, studying Greek and other languages. In college, Cummings was introduced to the writing and artistry of Ezra Pound, who was a large influence on him and many other artists in his time. After graduation, Cummings volunteered for the Norton-Haries Ambulance Corps. En-route to France, Cummings met another recruit, William Slater Brown. The two became close friends, and as Brown was arrested for writing incriminating letters home, Cummings refused to separate from his friend and the two were sent to the La Ferte Mace concentration camp. The two friends were finally freed, only due to the persuasion of Cummings' father.


This experience proved quite instrumental to Cummings writing. The Enormous Room is Cummings' autobiographical account of his time in the internment camp. E.E. was extremely cautious to attempt to publish The Enormous Room, however after great persuasion by his father, Cummings finally had a copy of the manuscript sent to Boston to be read. Edward, Cummings father, wrote after reading his son's manuscript, "I am sure now that you [E.E] are a great writer, and as proud of it now, as I shall be when the world finds out".


Cummings and Brown returned back to the states in January only to see Cummings drafted back to the war that summer. When Cummings returned after the armistice, he moved back in with Brown and soon met his first wife, Elaine Orr. In 1920, Cummings began to concentrate on his writing and painting. For the next six years, Cummings wrote many pieces of work, Tulips and Chimneys (1923), & (1925), XLI Poems (1925), and Is 5 (1926). Also during that time, Cummings and Elaine's marriage ended in a rather complicated divorce. Cummings had no concept of how to treat his new wife correctly, so she found herself love in the arms of another man.

In the same year that Is 5 was published, Cummings' father was abruptly killed and his mother was injured seriously in a car accident. With his new love-interest, Anne Barton, Cummings found out of his father's death at a small party in New York. Cummings and his sister, Elizabeth, immediately rushed to their mother's bedside. Although she was not expected to live through the week. Rebecca, Cummings' mother, was inspired by her children to continue living and she miraculously survived a fractured skull. E.E. explained the catastrophe in these words, "... a locomotive cut the car in half, killing my father instantly. When two brakemen jumped from the halted train, they saw a woman standing- dazed but erect- beside a mangled machine; with blood spouting out of her head. One of her hands kept feeling her dress, as if trying to discover why it was wet. These men took my sixty-six year old mother by the arms and tried to lead her toward a nearby farmhouse; but she threw them off, strode straight to my father's body, and directed a group of scared spectators to cover him. When this had been done she let them lead her away." This showed the immense love between Cummings' parents.

From his father's death to 1932, Cummings survived a poor showing of his play Him (1927), and published two other works of his artistic talents in CIOPW (1931), and ViVa (1931). Cummings also successfully married and divorced Anne Barton in the five years after the accident that took his father away from him. 1932 was an important year for Cummings because it was the year that he met the woman that he would ultimately spent his remaining life with. Marion Morehouse, the woman, was twelve years younger than E.E. It was uncertain whether E.E. and Marion ever officially exchanged vows, although their role in each other's lives was certainly that of husband and wife.


With a beautiful "wife", Cummings traveled the world. He ventured to Tunisia, Russia, Mexico, and France, among many other visits he made to lands across the Atlantic. Throughout these trips, Cummings manages to publish eight works: The Red Front (1933), Eimi (1933), No Thanks (1935), Tom (1935), Collected Poems (1940), 1x 1 (1944), and Santa Claus (1946). In Europe, Cummings wrote many anti-war poems in protesting America's involvement in Europe and the Pacific. He wrote the poem "plato told" to continue the work that his late-father had done as the Executive Secretary of the World Peace Foundation. His work was cut short for a brief period with the sudden deterioration of his mother's health. Soon after, his mother died.

(The dedication of what Cummings did for his parents were shown in the introduction paragraph.)

Fifteen years after his mother's death, Edward Estlin Cummings collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage at his summer home in Joy Farm. Soon after his death, three more volumes of his verse were published. Counting these works, Cummings died leaving behind over twenty-five books of prose, poetry, charcoal and pencil drawings, plays and stories. He did all this in his sixty-eight years of life.


Three Poems

1. i carry your heart with me by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Meaning: I think that this poem is trying to show a love for someone and how much he cares. Cummings uses metaphors to compare the person to his fate and his world. Also, at the beginning and end of the poem, Cummings tries to emphasise his love for this person by saying that the person's heart is with him.

2. if you like my poems let them by E. E. Cummings

if you like my poems let them
walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say
"Along this road i saw a princess pass
on her way to meet her lover(it was
toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."

Meaning: Cummings is trying to say to those people who admire his poems(the princess) that if they like his poems, let the words and sensual feeling(tall but ignorant servants) follow them when they find their lover.

3. 2 little whos by E. E. Cummings

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree

smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here

(far from a grown
-up i&you-
ful world of known)
who and who

(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

Meaning: As children we don't know who we are. All we have is our dreams which will eventually make us into knowers of whatever we think we know when we are adults. As children the horizons and ideas of ourselves are not yet limited by the fulfillment (or not) of our dreams. As adults we have already created our identities which are displayed in our life actions. It is a splendorous time to be young and to not know who we are and to have the identities forged before us.


Citations:
E.E. Cummings' biography: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/e__e__cummings/biography
Meaning of "i carry your heart with me": http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/11913/comments
Meaning of "if you like my poems let them": http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/11919/comments
Meaning of "2 little whos": http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/11873/comments
E.E. Cummings poems: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/e__e__cummings/poems