Poet Portrait: E.E. Cummings Essay

The aim of this essay is to present the different ways E.E. Cummings and Pablo Neruda in their poems “It May Not Always Be So” and “Always” respectively deal with the issue of love affairs. It will also seek to examine the similarities and differences in the poetic devices they use, and in the way the idea of prospective change, namely the possibility of unfaithfulness in the first, and the past of the speaker’s lover in the second poem is encountered by each speaker. The two poets have their speakers to express their feelings addressing the women they love in order to emphasize the theme of the poems, which they perceive in two utterly different ways: cummings’s speaker views the end of his

Poetry is considered to be a representational text in which one explores ideas by using symbols. Poetry can be interpreted many different ways and is even harder to interpret when the original author has come and gone. Poetry is an incredible form of literature because the way it has the ability to use the reader as part of its own power. In other words, poetry uses the feelings and past experiences of the reader to interpret things differently from one to another, sometimes not even by choice of the author. Two famous poets come to mind to anybody who has ever been in an English class, Robert Frost and E.E. Cummings. Both of these poets have had numerous famous pieces due to the fact that they both

EE Cummings was and is still one of the most well-regarded and unique poets of all time. His poems were unusual, but his strange way of writing is what grabbed people’s attention and made him so special. Many incidents in Cummings’ life affected his poetry, his experiences and his personality, which could clearly be observed in the poems he wrote. Cummings became such a well-known poet due to the effect of his life events on his poetry, his peculiar writing style and his strong connection with the topics of love and lust. The struggles and successes of his life developed his poetry in a huge manner.

Edward Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1894. His father was a professor at Harvard, leading Cummings to attend Harvard from 1911-1915 (Poetry for Students vol.3). At a young age Cummings showed a strong interest in poetry and art. His first published poems appeared in the anthology “Eight Harvard poets” in 1917. During WW1 Cummings volunteered for the French-based ambulance service and he spent four years in an internment camp in Normandy on suspicion of treason (Poetry for Students vol.3). When Cummings returned to New York, he pursued painting but was drafted in 1918. During the 1920's and the 1930's Cummings traveled throughout Europe, developing careers in painting and poetry. He published his first poetry collection,

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

Edward Estlin Cummings, commonly referred to as E. E. Cummings, was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a source of vast knowledge and was responsible for many creative works other than his poetry, such as novels, plays, and paintings. He published his first book of poetry Tulips and Chimneys in 1923. Many of his poems are known for the visual effects they create through his unusual placement of words on the page, as well as, his lack of punctuation and capitalization. The manner in which Cummings arranges the words of his poems creates an image in the reader's mind of the topic he is discussing, such as a season or climbing stairs. His visual style also

Edward Hirsch taught everyone to love and appreciate poetry to its greatest potential. Born in Chicago on January 20, 1950, he began writing at a young age and his traditional writing style of formal with a small creative twist. He strengthened America Poetry and gave a different view of literary criticism.

The Modernist period in history was a time of great change in society and politics. E.E Cummings was a poet who wrote radical Modernist poetry. Two poems which reflect some of his radical ideas are “I sing of Olaf Glad and Big” and “O sweet spontaneous”. These poems openly criticise aspects of society most people at the time would have been afraid to question. Cummings satirises the government, science, religion and philosophy over the course of these two poems. Cummings uses not only the content of his poems to present radical views but also uses the structure and syntax of his poems. Many of Cummings’ ideas were most likely seen as rude by many people but Cummings was ruled, to some extent, by his desire not to fit into societal norms.

Of course, every poet has their beginnings. Edward Estlin’s life began on the 14th of October in 1984 in Cambridge, Massachusetts to well-educated and liberal parents, and Rebecca Haswell Clark. The biggest influence that Cummings had as a child was from his mother, who always encouraged him to write poetry and she helped ingrain into him a love for literature too. Cummings went to Harvard Later after graduating from Harvard he volunteered to serve in France in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance group where he was later imprisoned for suspicion of treason because of the letters he wrote that were suspected of espionage and treason. During his jail time, he writes an autobiographical novel, The Enormous Room which was published in 1922. His father

As reported by Biography.com “Edward Estlin Cummings “e.e. Cummings” was a 20th century poet and novelist known for his innovations in style and structure.” Cummings’ was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 12, 1894. For much of his career he self-published all his work, until finally he was widely recognized. “A playwright and visual artist as well, Cummings’ died on September 3,1962” (Biography.com). Furthermore, Cummings’ is best known for his creative and unusual writing style in his poems “l(a... (a leaf falls on loneliness)”, “Buffalo Bill”, and “i carry your heart with me”.

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 named the most popular voice of the twentieth century. His death struck the world and saddened many. Cumming, who wrote nearly 2900 poems, had a rather hard life. He inspired many to write poems.

Modernist Poets E.E. Cummings, Wallace Stevens, and T.S. Eliot Change the Face of American Poetry