EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS (born in Cambridge, Mass., U.S. and died in North Conway, N.H.). American poet and painter who first attracted attention, in an age of literary experimentation, for his eccentric punctuation and phrasing. The spirit of New England dissent and of Emersonian "Self-Reliance" underlies the urbanized Yankee colloquialism of Cummings' verse. Cummings' name is often styled "e.e. cummings" in the mistaken belief that the poet legally changed his name to lowercase letters only. Cummings used capital letters only irregularly in his verse and did not object when publishers began lowercasing his name, but he himself capitalized his name in his signature and in the title pages of original editions of his books. Cummings received his B.A. degree from Harvard University in 1915 and was awarded his M.A. in 1916. During World War I he served with an ambulance corps in France, where he was interned for a time in a detention camp because of his friendship with an American who had written letters home that the French censors thought critical of the war effort. This experience deepened Cummings' distrust of officialdom and was symbolically recounted in his first book, The Enormous Room (1922). In the 1920s and '30s he divided his time between Paris, where he studied art, and New York City. His first book of verse was Tulips and Chimneys (1923), followed by XLI Poems and & (1925); in the latter year he received the Dial award for distinguished service to American letters. In 1927 his play him was produced by the Provincetown Players in New York City. During these years he exhibited his paintings and drawings, but they failed to attract as much critical interest as his writings. Eimi (1933) recorded, in 432 pages of experimental prose, a 36-day visit to the Soviet Union, which confirmed his individualist repugnance for collectivism. He published his discussions as the Charles Eliot Norton lecturer on poetry at Harvard University (1952-53) under the title i: six nonlectures (1953). In all he wrote 12 volumes of verse, assembled in his two-volume Complete Poems (1968). Cummings' moods were alternately satirical and tough or tender and whimsical. He frequently used the language of the streets and material from burlesque and the circus. His erotic poetry and love lyrics had a childlike candour and freshness.

 

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any 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 will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

1

into the strenuous briefness 
Life: 
handorgans and April 
darkness, friends 


i charge laughing. 
Into the hair-thin tints 
of yellow dawn, 
into the women-coloured twilight 


i smilingly glide. I 
into the big vermilion departure 
swim, sayingly; 


(Do you think?) the 
i do, world 
is probably made 
of roses & hello: 


(of solongs and, ashes)



2

O sweet spontaneous 
earth how often have 
the doting 


fingers of 
prurient philosophies pinched 
and poked 


thee 
has the naughty thumb 
of science prodded 
thy 


beauty how 
often have religions taken 
thee upon their scraggy 
knees squeezing and 


buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive 
gods 
but 
true 


to the incomparable 
couch of death thy 
rhythmic 
lover 


thou answerest 


them only with 


spring


3

but the other 
day i was passing a certain 
gate rain 
fell as it will 


in spring 
ropes 
of silver gliding from sunny 
thunder into freshness 


as if god's flowers were 
pulling upon bells of 
gold i looked 
up 


and 
thought to myself death 
and will You with 
elaborate fingers possibly touch 


the pink hollyhock existence whose 
pansy eyes look from morning till 
night into the street 
unchangingly the always 


old lady sitting in her 
gentle window like 
a reminiscence 
partaken 


softly at whose gate smile 
always the chosen 
flowers of reminding


4

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman 


whistles far and wee 


and eddyandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it's 
spring 


when the world is puddle-wonderful 


the queer 
old baloonman whistles 
far and wee 
and bettyandisbel come dancing 


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 


it's 
spring 
and 
the 
goat-footed 


baloonMan whistles 
far 
and 
wee


5

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman 


whistles far and wee 


and eddyandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it's 
spring 


when the world is puddle-wonderful 


the queer 
old baloonman whistles 
far and wee 
and bettyandisbel come dancing 


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 


it's 
spring 
and 
the 
goat-footed 


baloonMan whistles 
far 
and 
wee