I Have Found What You Are Like

- E. E. Cummings

i have found what you are like
the rain,

            (Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of green thrilling light
                                  with thinned

newfragile yellows

                      lurch and.press

—in the woods
                      which
                              stutter
                                        and

                                              sing
And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
                  your kiss

Featured Poet - E. E. Cummings

A couple of quotes: 

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. 

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

I had a high school English teacher who despised E. E. Cummings. She believed his approach to poetry was akin to an evil that was sending us careening into the bowels of hell.  His unconventional use of capitalization, spacing, and punctuation drove her to red faced tirades. 

Why she chose to teach a poet she hated so much, I don't know.  But I knew at the time that I was unable to share her opinion. I also knew that it was unwise to say so. What I didn't know was that I was the one in the majority, not her.    

Cummings' use of capitalization (or lack thereof) was the focus of a fair amount of controversy, but contrary to popular belief he did not eschew them entirely.  His signature for example, was signed using capital letters.  

"I am a small eye poet," he wrote to his mother by way of explanation. He used lower case letters to separate the poet from the poem, a unique way to solve a problem that still seems to plague most poets, the assumption that each poem is a small autobiography.

He was an accomplished writer in prose as well in poetry, and his intelligent, straightforward manner of expression brought him a great deal of respect. But did you know that he was also an artist? In fact, he considered himself as much a painter as a poet. Before he became disillusioned with the artistic establishment he garnered much acclaim as an American cubist and an abstract, avaunt garde painter. 

Unfortunately, not all of Cummings' efforts were as successful. His attempts to add his voice to the dialog on bigotry and racism were misunderstood. He fell into a pitfall that is common today, using the hurtful and controversial words while expecting his unspoken intent to be apparent. Also, surprisingly, this bohemian, avaunt garde writer and artist was a republican and an ardent supporter of Joseph McCarthy. 

When I think of E. E. Cummings, however, I think of poems like these: 

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

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 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)

 

[i like my body when it is with your]

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.  i like what it does,
i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric furr, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

 
from: Complete Poems: 1904-1962, Copyright 1991. 
Sources: sketch: self-portrait,   NOT "e. e. cummings" by Norman Friedman, The Paintings of E. E. Cummings (Painting: Nude Trio Two cavorting, one reclining) Ken Lopez Bookseller, Yes, I went to Wikipedia.

 

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

- E. E. Cummings

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

Spring is like a perhaps hand

E. E. Cummings

III

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.


Copyright 1923.

Welcome Everyone, to the Virtual Advent Tour

It's so very nice of you to stop by. 

I'm happy to be joining the Virtual Advent Tour for 2012. (The tentative schedule for the posts can be found here.)

It's my first time and I was really excited to sign up, but then reality set in. What was I going to share?

As I cast back through the years to my favorite Christmas moments in search of a topic, they all have one thing in common - the warm glow of colored lights on the tree, in the garlands framing the windows and mantle, and any place else I could find to put them. Just thinking about those lights brings back the sights, sounds, and scents of the holiday.

We usually don't take our Christmas lights down until after the Epiphany, (January 6) but have been known to leave them up until well into February, for no reason other than that we liked the way the house feels with them on.

I looked and looked, but I was not able to find a poem about Christmas lights. I'll have to rectify that for next year. In the meantime I'd like to share with you a Christmas poem. It's not one of the usual poems we see at this time of the year, but it's a sweet little one about that mainstay of the season, the Christmas tree.

[little tree]
- E. E. Cummings

little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see          i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don't be afraid

look          the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms

and i'll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed

you'll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they'll stare!

oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we'll dance and sing

"Noel Noel"

I wish for you and yours a wish that everyone can share

Peace on Earth ~ Good Will to All

How About a Challenge . . .

I've included a few links if you need a little help.

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
  -  E. E. Cummings

                             r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
                      who
  a)s w(e loo)k
  upnowgath
                  PPEGORHRASS
                                        eringint(o-
  aThe):l
             eA
                 !p:
S                                                         a
                          (r
  rIvInG                         .gRrEaPsPhOs)
                                                         to
  rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
  ,grasshopper;

Spring is like a perhaps hand

      by e. e. cummings

          III

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.


Copyright 1991. from: The Complete Poems: 1904-1962.

SPAMMERS MUST BE e.e. cummings FANS. I FIND THIS PARTICULAR STYE IN MY TRASH A LOT.

 

9.        
by e. e. cummings

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

            we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)

from: erotic poems. Copyright © 2010