How Does E. E Cummings Create Meaning With Sight And Sound

On October 14th, 1894, one of the most creative poets who ever lived, was born. 104 Irving Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts was the childhood home of Edward Estlin Cummings. This is where he began writing, at the early age of three, with the assistance of his imagination and his mother, Rebecca Clarke. Rebecca encouraged young Edward to write verse and keep a journal, along with helping him record his thoughts until he was old enough to write himself. He grew up surrounded by many forms of nature, allowing his imagination to soar. His family supported him throughout his life and taught him the importance of independence and individuality. Every step of his writing process, including the tools he used, the locations he wrote in, the themes he wrote about, the inspiration behind his work, and those who influenced him along the way contributed to the success E. E. Cummings had throughout his life and to making literature what it is today.

E.E Cummings’ distinctive style in poetry gives readers the opportunity to interpret his work in various ways. His satirical approach challenges modern society to go against the grain and construe his work how they individually view it. His fascination with nature allows him to create an unpredictable yet vivid storyline for readers. Cummings use of allegory and symbolism in his poem “[in Just-]” contributes to his intention of allowing readers to think for themselves.

The way EE Cummings wrote his poetry is the main reason why he was such a unique poet. In almost all his poems, he talked about the topic of love and lust, but not in an ordinary manner. He used so much emotion and detail in his poems; it would create images in the reader’s head. When he talked about lust, it was very explicit yet beautiful, leaving a mark on the reader. All of these things made his poems very effective, grabbing the reader’s attention and sucking them right in. In conclusion, Cummings’ approach of writing made his poetry very evocative. Another reason why his poetry was extraordinary was because of his unusual grammar and errors. He revised grammatical and linguistic rules to suit

Cummings not only uses his poetry to give the reader (or in this case, listener) an image in their mind- he also provides sound, and some of his poems hardly make sense until they are read aloud-much like the visual poems, that can’t be read but instead, seen. An example of this is his poem, “in Just-” he uses pauses to show that the voice could be fading, or that by “far and wee” the voice goes farther. As you continue to read further, he combines words to make it go faster, and he uses assonance to keep the rhythm. Some parts even have made up words, and unlike the leaf poem, paints an image with the words rather than the visual aid of the poem. One word that’s made up is “puddle wonderful” and paints a picture of a muddy, but fresh scenery. Besides words that paint an image, he also uses assonance to make it rhyme- along with other auditory techniques. Referring to his next poem, “O the sun comes up-up-up in the opening” he uses “ ree ray rye roh rowster shouts rawrOO”. This shows animals, instead of using the common sounds like “meow”. You can even try making these sounds (just not in front of normal, functioning people) and it could sound better aloud than in your head. The techniques he uses include onomatopoeia and alliteration, and just as the “in Just-” poem, uses these to create beats and rhythms. Although some of these may not sounds like real words, he still uses them to express and convey the emotions of those

E.E. Cummings is known for his unique use of diction, using nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs as nouns. What examples can you find in this poem? In the poem, “[i carry you in my heart(i carry it in]” cummings followed a nontraditional form of writing when creating his own “grammar rules” with punctuation, capitalization, spacing and pacing. I think that the main purpose of this and his reasoning behind it to diversify the meaning and generality of his poem. I think he was trying to be unique, and different while applying his own individual creativity through writing. For example, he uses a unique form of diction in stanza one when he says, “and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling.” Normally, this would not be worded the way it is, the sentence structure would be stronger and would flow better, however cummings still was able to apply meaning to that line by saying that everything he is and everything he has is because of his love. He also uses nouns in a distinctive way. For instance, he says in stanza three, “which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide.” Soul in this cause would already be considered a noun, however, he is rather using it more of a possession of his own. Cummings has a weird way of placing things within this poem. In most poems, everything is aligned to the left and follows down to the next line but in this poem the start of the second stanza, “i fear” is aligned all the way to the right. I think the purpose of this is to emphasize the fear, he is describing how strong his love is for this person but with love comes fear. By using these different forms of language and his uniqueness of grammar he was able to be different and find a new way for the reader to understand the power within his

First of all, E.E Cummings uses two techniques one of them is visual techniques to create meaning and make poems look like drawings, for example “a leaf falls” in Document A.The poem is like if a leaf is falling down from a tree.And also in the poem the word “loneliness” is spelled for the leaf getting separated from the others.In “the grasshopper jumps” document B is it like a grasshopper leaping

You would not ever think of using your two main senses such as sight and sound in writing, correct? Well E.E Cummings has defied the odds of basic and traditional poetry. E.E Cummings takes advantage of these various techniques to create a completely new meaning to poetry - but how does he do this? For example, when I read one of his poems for the first time, I perceived it as different and peculiar, but as I began to look more into his poetry, it displayed his techniques to construct a unique and expressive writing style.

E.E. Cummings creates meaning by using visual and auditory techniques. First of all, E.E. Cummings uses visual techniques in his poems to create meaning. In one of his poems which is “l(a” (Doc A) it’s using visual techniques by representing a leaf. In another one of his poems which was called “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” (Doc B) he uses spacing to show a grasshopper leaping. So E.E. Cummings uses parentheses to show a leaf falling, in the grasshopper one he use spacing to make it m like a

In this same poem, Cumming also uses spacing to create an image in the reader's mind. For example, he writes:

Cummings wanted to be a poet his whole life and wrote poetry daily from age eight to twenty two, exploring many different assorted forms. When Cummings went to Harvard he developed an interest in modern poetry which ignored conventional grammar and syntax, aiming for a dynamic use of language. When Cummings graduated, he worked for a book dealer. Most people would not capitalize his initials because of the way he would write his poems, without any capital letters. Cummings was a very successful man in his time, writing over 2,500 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is known as one of the best poets in our history. In 1917, in the First World War going on in Europe, Cummings enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, along with his college friend John Dos Passos. Cummings assignment got mixed up, resulting him being delayed to deploy. Resulting in him having to stay in paris for five weeks. He fell in love with the city, to which he would return throughout his life. After the war, Cummings returned to Paris in 1921 and remained there for two years before returning to New

To begin with, E.E Cumming used visual techniques to create his poems. . In the document a and b we used visual techniques like in Document A his poem is about loneliness and the shape of the poem looks like a l which can stand for loneliness . In (Doc B) he used made his poem look like the grasshopper was jumping in zigzag form

Cummings” pg.13). Cummings continued to publish volumes of poetry at a rate of approximately one every four or five years (“E.E. Cummings pg.14). The last honor involved giving a series of public talks; published as i: six Nonlecture (1953), they provide a succinct and charming summation of his life and personal philosophy. Two years later he received a National Book Award citation for poems 1923-1954, and two years after that he won the prestigious bollingen prize in poetry from Yale University (“E.E. Cummings” pg.15). (In his poetry he often ignored the rules of capitalization and has sometimes been referred to as e.e. Cummings) expanded the boundaries of poetry through typographic and linguistic experimentation (Frazee, “E.E. Cummings). An avoidance of capital letters and creative placement of punctuation soon became his trademarks. His experimental poetry took many forms, some amusing, some satirical, some beautiful, some profound, and some which did not make much sense (Frazee “E.E. Cummings”). Typical stylistic devices in his work include: running words together; scattering punctuation symbols cross the page; subverting the conventions of the English sentence; intentional misspellings and phonetic spellings and the invention of compound words such as “puddle-wonderful” (“E.E. Cummings”). However, this obvious experimentation is often combined with strict formal structures and traditional

E. E. Cummings, an author known for his various poems and other forms of artwork, wrote numerous works of poetry over a vast amount of subjects. While the subject matter of the poems differ, a few elements of Cummings' style stays the same in virtually all his poems, some of which is important and some of which is not. The fact that Cummings uses enjambment in his poetry is a stylistic trademark that however annoying its use may be is consistent. Other stylistic trademarks of Cummings' poetry are that Cummings has a control over the tone of each of his poems and that each of his poems has its theme located near the end of the poem. While these traits that may not be highlighted in most of the analysis of his poems, each does occur quite

Cummings’ impressive education consists of a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Harvard, in which he graduated near the top of his class. He submitted many of his poems to the newspaper at Harvard, which sparked his interest towards a career as a poet. When his first poem was published, the publisher left all the letters of E.E. Cummings’ name lowercase. Cummings soon adopted this as his own personal trademark. The style of Cummings’ writing was what made his poems so distinctive. No matter what the topic, he always incorporated a lyrical flow to the poem. Cummings “experimented with typography, slang, dialect, jazz rhymes, and jagged lines” (Anderson et al). By exploring the possibilities of poetry, Cummings was able to create poems that have a beat that corresponds with the tone, mood, and theme of the poem.

E.E. Cummings was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (E.E Cummings, poets.org 1). Cummings began was an early developer and learner and began writing around the age of 10 (1). He was the son of Rebecca Haswell Clarke and Edward Cummings (Berry, S.L. 29). He had one sister, Elizabeth Cummings, who he loved dearly and played with all the time. He and his father had an inseparable bond, Cummings described his dad as a hero and that they were very close. (29). Cummings being such an early developer had no problem with school and went to a private school where he continued to read and write (10). His reading level was extremely high (10)! Cummings studied many different languages consisting of Latin, French, and Greek (10). As a senior Cummings wrote and was the editor of the schools newspaper (10). When he was 15 years old he did the unbelievable and went to Harvard University (14). While in college Cummings loved to go to circuses and ballets (14). While balancing college and school work Cummings was a romantic (14). He also turned out to be an astonishing dancer (14).When Cummings, who was around twenty, was done earning his degrees and graduating he was ready to leave Massachusetts (15).